


far away, my well-lit door

by ap_trash_compactor



Series: my traveling companion [1]
Category: Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Dubious Ethics, Dubious Morality, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Manipulation, Mildly Dubious Consent, Power Dynamics, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 14:52:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 51,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17327081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ap_trash_compactor/pseuds/ap_trash_compactor
Summary: "He looks around, around / He sees angels in the architecture / Spinning in infinity." Or: Eli Vanto makes an offhand comment after visiting Yinchom, and it gives Thrawn a bright idea that he takes much, much, much too far. Everything's got fallout.





	1. these are the days of lasers in the jungle

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the random dick challenge in the Thryce challenge. Actual assigned dick noted at the end of the appropriate chapter. The point of the challenge was PWP but unfortunately, as you can tell from the word count, I Caught Plot. Thrawn is sort of a right bastard in this, see the tags. Arihnda kind of gets her in the end, but it's not necessarily a comfortable situation or a happy ending, and I would be extremely reluctant to call it a healthy relationship. Please consider yourself warned.
> 
> Title and pseudo-summary are both lyrics from Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al."

“Tell me what you noticed, Ensign Vanto,” says Thrawn as they depart Yinchom. He is keeping up a good clip of a walk, a steady pace that keeps both he and Eli just ahead of the ISB officers, though they are not quite abreast of Yularen.

 

“Ah,” says Eli, who does not want to betray how much difficulty he is having keeping pace without getting winded, “aside from Pryce, you mean?”

 

“If she is what you noticed, no. You can tell me about her. You did see her before I did.”

 

“Yeah. She saw you pretty quick too, though. Wasn’t very interested in talking to me.”

 

“No, indeed.”

 

“She sure was eager to talk to you, though.”

 

“And what do you make of that?”

 

Eli gives what is as close to a shrug as he can manage while walking at what is nearly a jog. “If she’d known about your promotion I’d say her interest was just in line with her job -- she said she was there trying to make high-level contacts.”

 

“And does being a Commander make me  _ high-level,  _ Vanto?” Thrawn asks, almost smiling. “A better question: since you do not believe she was aware of my promotion, what, then, do you think accounted for her interest?”

 

“Maybe she’s got a crush,” Eli says absently. His mind is still swirling around  _ yet another  _ promotion - one for Thrawn, not one for himself. He almost doesn’t hear his own comment until it’s already gone, words leaping to freedom on a swell of irritated frustration. He wishes he could snatch them back immediately. 

 

Thrawn, uncharacteristically, breaks his stride, and half-turns. He is looking back at Eli. Beyond Eli, Yinchom’s sign is still visible. Eli, mortified, has stopped stock-still in his tracks. Thrawn’s gaze seems to flicker from Eli to the sign and back. 

 

“Sir, I apologize --”

 

“No matter, Ensign,” says Thrawn, gently. “It is no longer our concern, in any case. When we return to the Thunder Wasp, I would like you to review the crew manifests. I should like your opinion on a few matters relating to the duty roster.”

 

“Of course, sir,” says Eli. His face is burning and he wants to apologize again, but he knows a free pass when he gets one.

 

~*~

 

“So,” Arihnda says casually, sitting at the kitchen counter and unpacking the take-away she’s picked up for dinner, “are we going to talk about that?”

 

Juahir, is sitting on the other side of the counter. She barely hears Arihnda. Her mind is still on Yinchom.

 

“Helloooooo,” Arihnda says, leaning forward and waving a hand in Juahir’s face, “planetary control to Juahir Madras, anyone at the helm in there?”

 

Juahir startles, and draws herself back to synchronous orbit with Arihnda with effort. Arihnda, who can't possibly have any idea -- “Sorry, Arihnda. What were you saying?”

 

Arihnda frowns, not quite a pout, an expression Juahir knows well, and sits back a little, and goes back to unpacking the food. “I was just asking if we were going to talk about, you know -- all that.”

 

“All what?” says Juahir. “Sorry, I just --”

 

“What do you mean, ‘ _ all what _ ?’ The ISB visiting Yinchom, obviously. Here,” she goes on, using the slightly clucking, mother-bird tone that Juahir dimly knows Arihnda saves for Juahir and Juahir alone, “maybe if you eat your brain will come back on line.”

 

“Oh, the spot check. That's nothing,” says Juahir, taking a box of steamed mun and making an effort to look more like herself -- or at least more like a version of herself Arihnda would recognize. “They do that sometimes.” 

 

Arihnda’s frown has taken on a keen edge -- which is not necessarily, Juahir knows, a problem. With Arihnda, Juahir has one staple tactic. She pops open the box of mun, smells it, reaches for a packet of savory, sour-sweet sauce -- and defaults to her usual method of dealing with her friend. “I’m more interested in your little b-line for that blue guy,” she says voice turning sing-song.

 

“Juahir, please,” says Arihnda, rolling her eyes. “I’m just on the lookout for --”

 

“Contacts?” finishes Juahir, a teasing smile oozing across her face. “Sure. I bet tall, indigo, and handsome will make quite the contact. Didn't you talk to him at Ascension week, too? I think something’s ringing a bell. Fate’s brought you together again!”

 

“Oh, come off it. He’s being promoted faster than most people in the Imperial Navy get their morning caf. He’s a good --”

 

“Contact, yeah, sure, okay,” says Juahir, stuffing a generous forkful of food into her mouth and talking around it. “So, tell me how you know all about this totally not-at-all-eye-catching contact you’ve decided to recruit.”

 

~*~

 

_ Maybe she's got a crush.  _ Thrawn had never heard the expression before, but the general meaning had been easy enough to divine. He is not sure he agrees completely with the assessment, but he thinks it is at least evident that Arihnda Pryce was, indeed, eager to speak to him -- and though he thinks she is ignorant of what he suspects to be the true business of both Higher Skies and Juahir Madras, he thinks she is suitably close to both to provide him with more information than even she herself might realize. If she needs persuasion, well -- it is obvious enough what she wants in life, and he may be well-enough positioned to help supply it. Thrawn himself may not yet be the sort of contact she wants within the Empire, but Yularen likely is, and that introduction Thrawn would be happy to supply, provided she supplies him with something that justifies it. And Yularen, too, would be happy, Thrawn thinks, if Arihnda Pryce proved useful in unraveling the puzzle of Nightswan and his Rebel supporters. One good turn in return for another. All the pieces, he thinks, are more or less properly aligned for it.

 

“Sir?” asks Vanto. 

 

Thrawn moves his attention from the hypothetical to the immediate. Vanto is standing before his desk, holding out a data pad and frowning. Thrawn holds out a hand for the pad. “You have reviewed the manifest and duty roster?” he asks mildly.

 

“Yeah,” says Vanto, still frowning slightly. “Everything looks alright to me --”

 

“Let us look a little closer. Please, sit.”

 

~*~

 

Arihnda doesn't really  _ mind  _ Juahir teasing her, most of the time. Most of the time, she manages to get her back. Caf too hot, or too cold, or replaced with tea --  _ what, you don't like this stuff?  _ \-- a particular pair of shoes borrowed, innocently of course, on the wrong day, laundry left undone with very specific timing…

 

Usually, she gets paid in some form or fashion for the burden of Juahir’s more annoying comments.

 

But lately, some of them have begun to grate a little more than Arihnda would like.

 

Why should it be a joke, she wonders with new and strangely sad bitterness, if she finds a man attractive? Why should it be a joke that nothing ever works out with men, for her? It's not like she's not interested. It's not like men are never interested in her. And it's not like she doesn't  _ try _ .

 

~*~

 

“Colonel, thank you for seeing me.” 

 

Thrawn’s tone is as mild and polite as ever. Yularen has liked Thrawn’s manners since he first met the man, and likes them still. He's more than happy to clear a few moments from his schedule.

 

“No trouble at all,” Yularen says, smiling, and waving Thrawn in. “Just you today?”

 

“This will be a short conversation, I hope. Ensign Vanto is making some adjustment to the duty roster.”

 

Yularen raises his eyebrows, but doesn't offer a comment. It's obvious there's something not quite professional going on with Vanto’s lack of promotion, but Yularen hasn't quite made up his mind to interfere yet. There's only so much he can afford to spend political capital on, and Thrawn himself is already an investment. 

 

“Good you're giving him some relevant command experience,” Yularen says. The comment seems pretty diplomatic, to his mind.

 

“Indeed; I try to develop my officers where possible. But this is not the matter I have come to discuss.”

 

“I didn't think it was,” says Yularen, gesturing for Thrawn to take a seat. “Tell me what you're planning.”

 

“Am I so obvious?” Thrawn asks, smiling softly as he sinks into the couch.

 

Yularen finds himself smiling in turn. “Only to an old akk-dog like me, Commander. Now go on, spill it.”

 

~*~

 

Yularen, Thrawn observes, frowns a great deal more deeply and offers a great deal less comment than he had expected. In the end, he only advises caution: “These things sometimes have a way of spinning out of control.” 

 

~*~

 

Arihnda has to read the message three times to be sure she understands it. The phrasing is  _ ridiculous.  _ Then she reads it a couple more times to persuade herself that it isn't, in fact, a joke.

 

Finally, she responds.

 

She isn't sure she's entirely enthusiastic, but it can't hurt.

 

~*~

 

“You're going out, sir?” 

 

Eli has just finished another round of adjustments to the duty roster; Thrawn would like to make sure that those enlisted who might make officer, and those officers who might belong on a command track, all get a little something to bump their resumes. He would also like to see that those enlisted who appear unsuited for advancement and those officers who appear slack or untalented are placed at least once or twice in situations that will force them to stretch, so Thrawn can assess if they might have a little hidden mettle to be molded. 

 

It's all a lot harder to arrange than Eli would have expected, and it's a pretty absorbing puzzle. He's been submerged in it, shifting the pieces around, trying to make everything fit, in every spare moment the past few days. So, he’s a little surprised to emerge from his state of focus and find that Thrawn has arranged a… a  _ date  _ for himself. Thrawn hadn't called it that, obviously, but it's sure what it sounds like.

 

“Yes,” says Thrawn, adjusting the collar of his dress uniform. “I have been thinking over our visit to Yinchom, and your comments. I have spoken with Colonel Yularen on the matter, and we both believe Ms. Pryce may be able to provide more valuable intelligence about Higher Skies, and possibly Yinchom.”

 

“So you're… uh… Sir, I’m sorry, but what's the idea here?”

 

“The idea is to build rapport, Vanto. It would be best to learn as much as possible before revealing the existence of an investigation -- we do not know her sympathies, and in any case it is best not to raise alarm where none need exist.”

 

“Right,” says Eli, sounding almost as skeptical as he feels. “Well, good luck.”

 

Thrawn smiles: a small, wry expression. “Thank you.”

 

~*~

 

“There's enough room in my boss’ office for a sparring session, if we move the furniture --”

 

“I’m sorry Ottlis, but I can’t make it.”

 

There's a short pause from the receiver. “Oh.” Then, in a tone that tries to sound teasing but comes off a bit nasty, Ottlis says: “Busy night reading mining trade papers?”

 

“Actually,” Arihnda says, “I have a date.” 

 

“Oh,” he says.

 

“Yes. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, maybe.”

 

“Right.”

 

“Good night, Ottlis.”

 

She doesn't mean to sound quite so smug about it, but she can hardly help herself. She'd been available to Ottlis whenever he wanted to ask. It's his loss -- if he even thinks it's a loss.

 

And Arihnda is feeling just a  _ touch  _ smug, if she's being honest. Non-human or not, she thinks Thrawn is rather impressive. Definitely worth knowing. And he'd asked for  _ her. _

 

And she's never been to an opera before. That alone is a little exciting.

 

~*~

 

Thrawn can never exactly turn off his awareness of the stares he generally receives while traveling on Coruscant, but he has learned to mute it. This is what he does now, traveling alone and largely on foot; his mind is on other matters.

 

~*~

 

He picks her up from Higher Skies’ office. They have about two and a half hours to kill before the show starts; she knows he is planning to take her to dinner somewhere, but she isn't sure where. She supposes it doesn't matter, really.

 

She _does_ have work she's trying to get done, so she's a few minutes late getting out of the office. When he comms to say he's arrived, she says she’ll be down _right away, just give me one minute_. She makes him wait about fifteen minutes, and comms apologetically on her way out the door. He sounds mild and polite when he says it is no matter.

 

He is waiting beneath a street lamp, graceful in his uniform and radiating a kind of infinite meditative patience, like an exquisitely intricate droid in rest mode. There is something strangely, unspeakably alluring about his apparent ability to sink into his own mind and simply exist. She understands the value of it as a skill, having worked hard to develop patience of her own, but more than that, it gives her the impression that he considers her worth waiting for. That more than anything is the reason she feels a flurry of hopeful excitement that takes her by surprise. She takes a second to tamp it down before she pushes open the door of the building and calls out to him.

 

~*~

 

Thrawn considers the wait a mild annoyance, but not prohibitive of anything important in his endeavor. He spends the time meditating on what he knows of Nightswan, and how Arihnda Pryce’s employers likely fit into the puzzle, and how best he should manage her, and what sorts of questions he should ask.

 

“Hello -- I’m sorry for the for wait --”

 

“It was no trouble,” he says, straightening to his full height and holding his arm out so that she might loop her own through it. As she crosses the bit of walkway between them, he surveys her body language and appearance with a critical eye.

 

She is clearly pleased to see him, clearly suppressing a frisson of quiet happiness that he thinks bodes well for his plans, provided it fades into pleasant and companionable goodwill rather than ratcheting up into something more volatile and demanding.

 

As for her looks -- she has made more of an effort than he expected. She is wearing an understated, slim-fitting dress in a flattering, deep shade of red, something that goes quite well with his black-and-silver dress tunic and dark blue skin. It is not as elaborate as the gown he remembers her wearing at Ascension Week, but likely she has less money to spend these days. Her only accessory is a clutch purse in a matching color. Forced to choose between flash and quality, she has evidently made the wise decision. He appreciates the sensibility it indicates, and he does not have any objection to the aesthetic outcome, either. Just as she appeared moderately skilled in the dojo, she appears at least moderately graceful here, and her figure is not bad.

 

She slips her arm loosely through his, resting her hand lightly on his forearm, and asks, a touch brusquely: “Where are we going?”

 

“I have made reservations at the Pinnacle.” He feels a very faint falter in her step, suppresses a small smile, and continues smoothly: “I hope you do not mind.”

 

“Not at all,” she says. She does fairly well at sounding unruffled, but he can hear the little thrill beneath her tone. That, too, almost makes him smile.

 

It has been some time since he has been able to indulge in the unique pleasures of playing host to company.

 

~*~

 

Arihnda doesn't mind the few stares and whispers that trail them across the dining room: a little notoriety can be a useful tool. More importantly, it feels wonderful to be back in this place: Arihnda hasn’t been in the Pinnacle since Driller and Juahir offered her her job. It seems almost like fate leads her here as a signal that good things are coming to her.

 

And so far, Thrawn’s company has been a very good thing. He makes conversation easily, graciously. He asks polite questions and listens politely to the answers, and isn't interested in turning the conversation relentlessly only to his own ideas or his own accomplishments, like so many men seem to be.

 

On the walk from Higher Skies to the restaurant, he asks how she has been since they saw one another at Yinchom, if she studies martial arts on her own, how long she has lived on Coruscant, does she like it here, where does she normally go for leisure -- one question leads naturally to another and by the time they reach the restaurant they are chatting quite easily about the different levels, the various kinds of entertainment the city has to offer, what she enjoys doing most. It feels very easy; he seems to have a talent for hearing when she is hedging on a question, and when she does, he never presses.

 

By the time they are seated at their table -- and she wonders if he didn't request one by the window specially, the view is so spectacular -- it seems only natural that she should ask him some questions.

 

She tries to keep these neutral, conversational. Does his work bring him to Coruscant often? Where is he normally stationed, if he's allowed to say? Can he tell her anything about the sort of operations he's involved in, or is that kind of thing usually very hush-hush?

 

His answers are clear and gracious, and have a thoughtful quality that makes her want to pry a little deeper -- to hear more of how he thinks of things.

 

By the time they start eating, that's exactly what she's doing. They are trading observations, really, of Coruscant social mores and politics. His quiet, analytical critiques, generally prefaced by a mild-mannered “I had thought…” or “it seems to me…” are laced with a wickedly dry humor so subtle she doesn't quite catch it at first, but by the end of their appetizers, she’s choking back a laugh every other comment. He seems to appreciate her attempts at humor, too: occasionally she whips off a barb at the expense of some Moff or some ponderously pretentious Senator that makes him snort softly, or smile. His smiles -- subtle and understated -- spark a delighted little glow in her chest that she finds herself working to ignore.

 

She almost wants to invite him to skip the opera, but while Coruscant may be a bawdy-house compared to Lothal, it's still conservative, and in her way, so is she. But she’s happy to wrap her arm close around his as they leave for the Coruscant Opera House. It's the oldest opera house in the ecumenopolis, a storied and classically beautiful building a short walk away.

 

“What are we seeing?” she asks

 

“A production of  _ The Masterwork of Illure Beelthrak _ ; it is somewhat light, but I was not sure if you had a taste for opera already. It seemed a good choice for someone who is new to the genre -- I hope you do not find this too insulting.”

 

It is a  _ little _ insulting that he’d assumed she wouldn’t know anything about opera, but not enough to ruin the evening, and it's considerate in its way, too. And, he’s right. So she says: “No, not at all. I appreciate the… thoughtfulness. Have you seen it before?”

 

“I have seen several holovids of different productions, but I have not had the pleasure of seeing it live.”

 

“So this will be a little bit new for both of us,” she says lightly.

 

He pauses at that, and finally says: “I suppose, yes.”

 

The silence after that is strangely awkward, and Arihnda finds she's the one who does the work to get them talking again:  “Could you tell me what it's about? Or do you think that would ruin the effect?”

 

“Certainly I could,” he says. And by the time he is using gentle touches to usher her into her seat -- a lush and lavish chair in a private box -- the strange slip in his manners is almost entirely gone from her mind.

 

~*~

 

In truth, Thrawn does not believe that seeing  _ Beelthrak _ live will be much of a pleasure. 

 

It is not that he expects it to be bad, so much as it is that he thinks it is a rather stupid play -- the fairly simple love story that animates the first two acts is charming enough, but in the third act the story gives way to some fairly obnoxious commentary on the nature of art and artistry with which he rather disagrees. Moreover, he does not particularly care for the music. He has always considered the melodies overly bombastic, lacking in both subtlety and beauty. It is not a  _ bad  _ opera, certainly _ ,  _ and it is generally considered a good beginner’s piece -- he truly had chosen it for those reasons -- but on the whole he expects more that it will give him a chance to observe his companion while unobserved himself than that it will be a enjoyable diversion.

 

He expects her to respond to the production out of a climber’s determination to learn the signs and symbols of the graceful classes, to be studious and keen on absorbing a bit of culture in the way that the socially ambitious always are: as a token that can be used later to gain admission or prove worth within more gilded circles than one’s own. He expects that his having chosen a fairly accessible piece will make the process somewhat tolerable for her, but little more than that.

 

It is clear by the end of the overture that she finds the music more than tolerable, and obvious by the end of the first act that she is genuinely interested in following the story. 

 

At first, she leans forward in her seat and follows the action onstage as if it were a grav-ball game. 

 

Then, after a little hesitation, which he watches with some amusement and which he is sorely tempted to cut short by asking what she needs, she leans over to him and whispers a charmingly incisive question about a baroque interaction where several characters shuffle around like the chit in a street con’s cup-game. The thrust of her question is just if she is correct in her reading of who has landed where. He leans close and whispers that she has understood perfectly. She whispers “alright,” in a satisfied tone, offers no thanks, and leans forward again. That, too, is charming -- or at least amusing.

 

A little later she is leaning over again, and this time Thrawn, temporarily distracted by a reflection of sparkling gold special-effects light across the pale swath of her décolletage, has to ask her to repeat the question. She doesn't seem to mind having to do so; certainly she seems easy enough to please.

 

By the middle of the second act, they are leaning close together. He has his arm over the back of her chair, and he is spending more time watching the curve of her jaw and the sweep of her neck than he is watching the stage; spending more time catching the spicy notes of her perfume than listening to the music; spending more time wondering idly about the texture of her shining, stick-straight hair than analyzing her behavior. All the time he is not doing those things, he is listening to her questions and tossing off short answers, some of which are met with a skeptical wrinkle in her nose, and most of which lead to more questions. She is, he has decided, reasonably agreeable company in her own right. 

 

And when the intermission comes, he tells her so, in his way.

 

He sits back and draws his arm away from her, slinging it casually over the back of his own chair. He tilts his head and raises an eyebrow. “It seems you are enjoying this.”

 

She turns her torso and, half-mirroring his body language, rests her arm on the back of her chair and props her face on her hand. “I am, in fact. Very much so.” The expression on her face isn't soft, exactly, but it isn't disagreeable, either. It is a little cautious, perhaps. She is clearly as keen on parsing him as he is on understanding her, though presumably from different motives.

 

He decides he will not mind being examined, at least a little.

 

“Would you care for a drink?” he asks. It seems a likely guess. “I believe the boxes come with serving droids. Or we can go to the bar -- I think you may enjoy the mezzanine; I understand the view of the lobby chandelier is rather famous.”

 

She smiles, both at the invitation and at his expense. He is willing to endure it; in a perverse way, it tells him he is succeeding.

 

“The bar sounds nice,” she says, straightening up in her chair.

 

“I thought it might,” he says, smiling partly at her expense. He rises from his chair, and holds out a hand for her.

 

~*~

 

He leaves her alone for a few minutes while he navigates the line to bar, but she doesn't mind. There's something pretty funny, something she likes, about the image of this very tall, dignified man standing in a line of people who mostly come up to his shoulder, jostling with mites just so he can go through a mundane transaction with no benefit to anyone but her.

 

And she isn't bored waiting, either. The view of the lobby, above which hangs a massive chandelier made of strange intersecting gold spikes, which is silhouetted against the four-story tall floor-to-ceiling windows and marble arches of the building’s facade, is truly beautiful to behold. 

 

The mezzanine itself is a huge sweeping thing jutting into empty space in the middle of the building, slightly higher than the chandelier. Two massive staircases curve down from mezzanine into the lobby like lazy arms: marble and gold with crimson carpeting. 

 

Arihnda leans on the balustrade and watches the milling crowd, and when Thrawn brings her a flute of something sparkling -- dry, mineral, and floral, with just a hint of fruity sweetness -- she smiles broadly at him.

 

“Not too boring of a line, I hope,” she says.

 

“Perfect agreeable,” he says.

 

~*~

 

Thrawn had indeed found the line perfectly agreeable, and had found the quiet moment he had spent watching Arihnda Pryce leaning on the balcony equally so. She is keenly observant of the people around her, he sees, but does not make any particular effort to reach out to them. Some humans make friends as naturally as they breathe, striking up conversation in any idle moment as if they need chatter the same way they need air. Some withdraw, radiating their desire to be left alone like gun emplacements.

 

Arihnda Pryce does neither.

 

She projects self-containment, and… a certain type of contentment, he thinks. She is certain of her value and though she is clearly capable of being pleasantly sociable, she can take or leave the company of others, and will do so based upon their value and her own convenience.

 

He thinks this bodes well for fact that she has chosen his company. Provided he does not push either too hard or too fast, he will likely obtain everything he wants from her. Likely she will hand it over, exactly as he had hoped.

 

“Tell me,” he says, after she takes a sip of her drink, her eyelids fluttering gently with restrained pleasure as she does, “do you know the history of this chandelier?”

 

“No,” she says, feigning polite interest very well, which he finds amusing. “Do you?”

 

~*~

 

Arihnda doesn't really like the third and final act of the opera as much as she'd liked the first two: it's too long, it drags, and the story that had made the first part of the evening so lively -- a charming little plot about a young man who has to compose a winning entry in a song contest before he can marry the town mayor’s daughter -- takes a backseat to what feels like a weird lecture about how no one can make art unless they listen to their elders and follow a bunch of stodgy old rules. She doesn't really have any opinion on the philosophical implications of that so much as she thinks it's incredibly boring, but she still likes sitting close to Thrawn, and she still likes the music.

 

After, they sit for a few minutes while the mass of the crowd surges out of the general seating below them. It's almost as much of a spectacle as the opera had been.

 

“Well,” says Thrawn. He seems to be watching her closely, but he doesn't say anything else.

 

“I liked it,” she says brightly. It's mostly true.

 

“Did you?”

 

“Yes -- I think you're right, it's very good for a first time.”

 

His lips quirk for a moment in a way that is very amused and not remotely kind, but the expression is gone before she can fully decide she dislikes it.

 

With a more sober, polite expression on his face, he says: “I am glad you enjoyed it.” Then he somehow gives the impression of being ready to rise from his chair without moving his body much at all, and in a firmer tone he says: “Shall we go?”

 

She smiles brightly, again. “Let’s.”

 

He guides her from the building with a hand in the middle of her back: low enough not to be entirely innocent, but high enough to be completely proper.

 

On the broad patio outside, he says: “Shall I hail a speeder for you?”

 

Of course, she should say yes. But instead she finds herself turning on her toes to face him, and saying: “Actually, my apartment’s only about forty-five minutes from here -- if you don't mind the walk.”

 

He seems, for a second, almost taken aback -- though it is very subtle, transmitted by a momentary deepening stillness rather than any anxious tick. Then, with a slight inclination of his head, he says “Of course” and holds out his arm for her.

 

She grins as she takes it, and says “This way” and starts them walking. 

 

They go in silence for a while, before she says: “Can I ask what you thought of the show?”

 

“Of course.” 

 

“I mean, what you  _ really _ thought.”

 

His stride seems to have a little stutter for a moment. Then, with the wicked humor she'd enjoyed so much earlier, he says: “You do not believe I would tell you my true opinion?”

 

“I’d just like to make sure,” she says lightly.

 

And loosens the cap. The conversation the rest of the way back to her apartment flows as marvelously as it had before and during dinner. As it turns out, they are more or less in complete agreement about the third act. He has other opinions about the composer’s oeuvre which she isn't equipped to understand, but he delivers them with a dry elan that makes her laugh more than once.

 

At the front entrance of her building, she stops, and hesitates. She is going, she realizes as the nervous intent solidifies within her, to invite him up -- not for sex, she doesn't think, just… just to keep him around a little longer.

 

Before she can speak, he says: “Thank you for the evening.”

 

“Of course.”

 

“I trust you can make it the rest of your way unaccompanied.”

 

“I -- yes, I think I’ll manage.”

 

“Perhaps you will give me the pleasure of your company again, in the future.” he says. It's phrased like a question, but it's not really intoned as one.

 

She doesn't mind the way he says it. There isn't really a question of her answer, anyway. “Of course,” she says. “Just let me know when.”


	2. alright in a sort of limited way for an off night

Thrawn doesn't exactly have a spring in his step the next morning. He betrays very little, that Eli can see, but he might be a little more on the quiet-and-thoughtful side than usual. Eli settles into his usual workstation to start sorting through Thrawn’s messages and Thrawn doesn't even say good morning. That's not so unusual, but Eli does wonder if it's the previous evening that's on Thrawn’s mind, or something else.

 

Eventually, Thrawn starts talking.

 

“Very fine work on the newest draft of the roster, Ensign.”

 

“Thank you,” says Eli. He doesn't let himself  _ feel  _ the thank you too much, though. It's the kind of comment that usually comes with a follow-up, and he’s learned to wait for that.

 

“You are most welcome. Although --”  _ there it is,  _ thinks Eli -- “I believe the engineering stations might be used to better effect. And I notice you have not given Hammerly much of a chance on the weapons stations.”

 

Eli frowns. The engineering stations he agrees about, but -- “She had pretty mediocre academy scores, sir.”

 

“Nevertheless, we will give her a chance to prove herself. Put her on at least one rotation during my command shift.”

 

“Yes, sir,” says Eli tightly. Though she has a good education in and apparent talent for mathematics, Hammerly’s academy scores had actually been more abysmal than mediocre, especially in her practical courses. But far be it for Eli to argue with Thrawn when he got curious about a person.

 

And it's not a terribly hard adjustment to make, either. Eli’s got so much of the roster memorized that he’s practically rearranged the thing in his head before he even pulls up the file on his workstation. Five or so minutes later, Thrawn’s looking it over again.

 

“Much improved. Thank you, Ensign.”

 

And that's the real compliment, Eli knows. That's the thing that means the work is finally done. “Thank you, sir,” he says, feeling satisfied -- and a little relieved.

 

Thrawn doesn't offer any further comment, and Eli tries to put his mind back on track -- but the silence has a texture to it that keeps getting in the way. The fuzzy feeling in the air is just the fiber of Eli’s own buzzing curiosity, he knows, but sometimes he just has to -- “Sir?”

 

“Yes, Ensign?” Thrawn asks without looking up.

 

“Sir, last night -- I was just wondering how it went.”

 

Thrawn raises his eyebrows, but keeps his attention on his workstation. He begins typing before he begins speaking. “It went well, I believe.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

Thrawn turns his attention to Eli then, and he subtle expression on his face is either amusement or annoyance. Eli can't entirely tell which. It might be both.

 

“Yes, Ensign,” says Thrawn. There's a little twitch to Thrawn’s lips when he speaks that says the balance of his mood is probably amusement.

 

And Eli thinks he might get some mileage out of pushing -- but he doesn't really want to make the effort.

 

~*~

 

“You got home late,” says Juahir. She's busy frying nuna bacon; she wants Arihnda to stay and talk, and sometimes food can make her linger. It's more or less the basis of their friendship.

 

“Mm, is that bacon?” says Arihnda, swinging off her track towards the door and wandering into the kitchen.

 

“Thick cut with extra fat,” says Juahir, grinning. “And the caf’s cold enough for you too, I think.”

 

“I don't drink it cold --”

 

“Whatever --”

 

“You know --”

 

“Whatever!” says Juahir again, flicking the tongs in her hand so a bit of grease goes flying and Arihnda has to flinch away from it. “How was Mr. Mystery Man?”

 

“Just because I don't tell you who I --”

 

“Oh my stars, Arihnda. Come on. Just tell me if it was a good date, would you?”

 

Arihnda pauses, eyeing the bacon, weighing if breakfast is worth the cost in information. 

 

Juahir waits; she's got patience for her friend’s weird personality, which just beneath a cultivated veneer of sociability is all spiked edges and strange secrets, and at the core all seething longing and stranger passion. Arihnda’s full of care for the people she chooses to draw close, but she’s full of sharp traps and delicate trip-wires, too. Juahir know how to navigate most of it. 

 

So she waits.

 

Finally, Arihnda says: “It was good. Is that going to be done soon?”

 

~*~

 

Thrawn has a plan, of course, although it allows for improvisation. For instinct, and adjustment. Cultivating rapport -- building trust -- is in his estimation like weaving a rope-bridge, starting by twisting the rope. The material must be treated with delicate care at every stage, so that the final creation is both strong and flexible enough to bear the brunt of truth, or of demand. He has not decided to devote such work to it since -- C’ardas, probably, he thinks.

 

He has made a good impression. It was not so difficult to do. Next, he must cultivate a space between the two of them that feels natural and easy for his subject to inhabit. It is a little trickier, as it requires him to give something of himself in return. What he gives need not actually be personal or meaningful to himself, but it must feel at once intimate and innocent to the person who receives it.

 

With C’ardas, the key had been to reveal some of the weight of his problems. What he had shown had been the truth; choosing to show it had been strategy.

 

He has no particularly burdensome troubles at the moment. His plans are all moving more or less smoothly forward; he expects success in all of them, given time. And in any case, he does not think Arihnda Pryce wishes to be burdened with anyone's troubles but her own.

 

Clearly she enjoys conversation. She enjoys the idea, he thinks, that someone interesting or intelligent finds her interesting and intelligent in turn. And she enjoys elegant places.

 

With these two points, he thinks, he can work to good effect.

 

~*~

 

It's a short note but Arihnda doesn't play coy about answering it. And she likes that he didn't play coy about waiting to ask, either; last night had been lovely, and while playing cool is fine she thinks more than half a day’s radio silence would have ruined the memory. 

 

_ I’d love to,  _ she writes back within an hour. _ Do you have a time in mind? _

 

He does, two days from then.

 

~*~

 

Rather than picking her up, he arranges to meet her at the preserve’s pubic entrance. Again, she makes him wait, but only five minutes this time. Again, he does not consider it terribly annoying, although if she does it a third time he might say something.

 

She has taken care with her appearance again: clothing suited to her office, but that doubles as appropriate for casual evening wear. She could easily blend in to the crowd at one of the tapcafs that Royal Academy cadets and Apprentice Legislature members alike favor for brunch, or for dinners that are mostly made of elaborate cocktails and reimagined comfort food. She is just edging into being slightly too old for the crowds at those places, but she has dressed her age, and her choices look well on her. She is wearing a blue jumpsuit. Simple, again, but elegant. The slim-fitting suit has appropriate tailoring and a few touches that let her look reasonably fashionable for Coruscant: bold color blocks in a shade that compliments the base color and slightly over-constructed seams in the shoulders. He preferred the dress she'd worn three days ago, but this is more appropriate to the evening's activities, so he is not entirely displeased.

 

“Hello,” she says with an easy smile as she takes his arm, “I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long.”

 

“Not at all,” he says, steering them into the gardens. “Have you been here before?”

 

“Never,” she says, “but I’ve always meant to -- B’ankor Refuge is one of the only natural features left on the planet.”

 

“That is what I have heard. I am also given to understand the B’ankora were relocated here after a disaster on their homeworld. I am curious to see how they have adjusted.”

 

“Oh,” says Arihnda, “they don't live here anymore. Palpatine relocated to them to an entire planet, I think. Some place put in the mid-rim. This is just a garden now. And -- I think there's a power station, too?”

 

Thrawn frowns. He will have to follow up on that. “I see,” he says.

 

“But the night-blooming flowers are  _ famous,”  _ she goes on with moderates enthusiasm. “Apparently it's the largest concentration of Candlewick flowers anywhere outside Alderaan, and we should be just in time for them.”

 

“Indeed,” he says. “I have heard there is also an impressive planting of marg sabls here, although I am given to understand they open at the opposite end of the day.”

 

“Well,” she says, voice still light and easy, “perhaps we’ll have to come back.”

 

The rest of the evening is light and easy as well. He gains a much better sense of how much she knows about Coruscant and the Imperial government -- a rather impressive store of knowledge, especially for a civilian -- but he does not press her for any personal details about her job. He finds it informative that she makes no effort to offer any boasts or even anecdotes about her work: he will, at some point, have to pry, and the bridge of trust between them will need to be stronger when he does.

 

He does, however, ask her about her family. She is slightly guarded in her answers, especially as to how she came to leave Lothal and how they left, as well, but her love for her parents is clear. And when the topic starts to run dry -- which it does quickly because he does not press, not even gently, on the points that seems to hurt -- she does an interesting thing.

 

“And you,” she says, “do you mind if I ask about your family?”

 

They have only just arrived at the large central grove of Candlewick flowers. The climbing vines have been trained onto massive, elaborate trellises that describe a large semi-circle of manicured lawn. The pale blossoms are still mostly closed, but a faint glow is already radiating from inside each of them, giving a hazy, half-imagined promise of light to the space they border. The half-circle of grass is dotted with marble benches, but there are no walkways. Where the path they are on meets the thick carpet of dark green, there is a single sign reading “please remove shoes” and a low wall of cubbies where a few other visitors, who have scattered themselves around the edges of the lawn, have placed their footwear.

 

Thrawn and Arihnda are standing beside the sign when she asks if she can ask about his family. She is still holding his arm. She turns into him slightly as she asks, and places her free hand on his shoulder. She is frowning a little, with well-mannered concern. Thrawn does not receive an impression of intimacy so much as he perceives the skills of a solicitous hostess.

 

But she is pressed awfully close to him, and seems awfully comfortable there, for this to be only good manners. 

 

He considers his options for a moment.

 

“Certainly you may ask,” he says finally. “But let us not miss the blossoms, or we will be forced to come back and try again.”

 

Her expression of concern melts into a wry smile. “I don't think that would be so bad,” she says, unwinding her arm from his and bending to remove her shoes.

 

“Perhaps not,” he says.

 

~*~

 

Arihnda doesn't press the topic of his family again. If he is going to let her alone on topics that hurt, she can do the same for him.

 

Instead, she leads them to a bench near the center of the lawn, and turns the conversation to what she knows of Candlewicks -- a little history, a little Alderaanian myth, a little bit about what it probably cost to build this little alcove. And when the flowers start to open, she lets herself fall silent.

 

~*~

 

Thrawn has seen night-blooming flowers before: several kinds, on several worlds. He does not find the Candlewicks so impressive. But they provide yet another opportunity to observe his quarry while she is distracted. 

 

When the flowers finally open, her face is lit up from within as much as the gentle golden glow of the blooms lights it from without. Her features are softened with wonder and her mouth stretches wide in a smile that isn't particularly pretty, but is extremely charming. For all her quiet focus and hard-nosed ambition, she still has what he thinks Vanto would call  _ stars in her eyes _ . 

 

Likely those stars will be extinguished by the end of Thrawn’s investigation into Higher Skies, but for a little while at least she and he both might benefit from his doing things that spark a fire for her. Although she may not see it as such, he is giving her a gift.

 

“How long do they stay lit?” he asks after a few minutes of watching her face.

 

“All night, I think,” she says, turning toward him. The glow of the flowers reflects like their namesake candle flame off her pale taupe skin giving her a golden glow, and sparks glitter in her bright eyes exactly like stars.

 

“And how long would you like to stay?” he asks.

 

It isn't a funny comment, he doesn't think, but it makes her laugh anyway -- a sound that comes from enjoyment more than amusement, he supposes. The mechanics of her throat work nicely beneath the fine skin of her long neck, and the sound she makes is low and attractive. Overall, quite pleasant.

 

“How long do  _ you _ want to stay?” she echoes back at him, eyes crinkling at the corners, smile hardening slightly into something that indicates appetite.

 

He observes her closely for a few moments, during which her newly hungry smile does not falter, and finally he says: “A few minutes, perhaps. Then, I think the repulsor train from here stops in the Uscru District -- that is on your way home, is it not?”

 

She raises her eyebrows, tilts her head a little. “Yes. Did you have something in mind?”

 

“Vesari Fry-House.” Although it is significantly more upscale than it's name implies, it is still more a serviceable than an elegant place, suited to both their dress. He, too, is wearing a regular working uniform. “I thought we might have dinner.”

 

The mid-scale nature of the place doesn't seem to bother her. Her smile brightens and widens again: surprise and genuine pleasure. 

 

“Alright,” she says. “That sounds fine.”

 

She turns her face back to the glowing wall of flowers, and lets her her shoulder press lightly against his. He knows it is not entirely intentional, but her decision not to move away certainly is -- as is his.

 

~*~

 

They sit for a little while. 

 

Arihnda, who has never seen Candlewicks in person before, thinks the flowers are beautiful. Sitting side-by-side with Thrawn, shoulders and thighs touching, is nice too. A part of her wishes he would maybe do a little more than just sitting still beside her, but she’s more or less happy with the moment.

 

Eventually, she sneaks a look over at him, and finds he is watching her. His blue skin looks almost midnight-black in the orange-yellow light of the flowers. Only his eyes, lit from within, glitter in the incandescence of the blooms. The effect is eerie and dramatic -- and appealing.

 

“Shall we go?” He deep voice is steady and even, and his expression is, she thinks, though she cannot see his features very clearly, probably equally as calm. She rather likes that.

 

“Yes,” she says, “I think we should.”

 

He leads her out of the garden much as he’d led her out of the opera house: with a hand in the middle of her back. She likes that. There are occasional stares and whispers just like there were at the Pinnacle, both because she is human and he is not, and because of the incongruence of his species and his uniform, but they don't bother Arihnda much.

 

They don't seem to bother him, either; he keeps up a quiet stream of easy questions about restaurants and gardens on Lothal, and she's perfectly happy to play along.

 

He even keeps the chatter going as he ushers them through the train gates and into the train with the same kind of soft, light touches he'd used to usher into her seat at the opera. She likes that, too.

 

It's while they're boarding the train that things change.

 

He’s leading her leading her into the car with a soft pressure of fingertips at her elbow when she hears someone hiss at them.  _ “Traitor _ ,” someone snarls softly in a low, malicious voice.

 

Arihnda stops almost instantly. She doesn't know who's said it, can’t even tell from the voice what species they might be, but she knows with a deep instinct that it was said to one of them. To him, for being with her. To her, for being with him. To him, for wearing his uniform. She doesn't know, and she doesn't care. Whatever the reason, she intends to figure out who said it, and tell them --  _ didn't their mother teach them manners? Who do they think they are? Where do they get off  _ \--

 

All these thoughts thoughts, reactions, are the work of a moment. And in that moment, almost the instant her feet stop moving forward, the instant she starts to look around her, the pressure of Thrawn’s fingers just above her elbow changes: from soft warm spots of gentle suggestion to firm, hard points that almost hurt.  _ Keep forward _ is the message.

 

Arihnda doesn't move forward. She keeps on with the twist in her torso and neck, looking --

 

And the contact of his hand on her arm becomes, suddenly, almost acutely painful: his grip seizes like a vice, the points of his fingers like iron bolts.

 

As if tripping over something, body stuttering, she straightens and moves forward with him: lets him lead her to a seat with strict firmness, sits primly beside him as he lets go of her arm and settles with a kind of stiff professional formality onto one of the long bench seats. His back is perfectly straight, his gaze straight ahead. His hands rest on his knees, his chin is at a neutral angle, and he neither looks at her nor speaks.

 

She sits very still beside him and doesn't do anything for a few minutes.

 

Then, as the train pulls into the next station, she decides to sneak a glance at him, mostly out of the corner of her eye. His gaze seems fixed on the side of the car across from him, and he doesn't seem to respond to her sneaking a peak. 

 

So she decided to look a little more fully.

 

He doesn't respond to that at all.

 

This isn't like the meditative stillness she'd seen when he was waiting for her outside Higher Skies. This is more like he's thrown up a wall between himself and the rest of the Galaxy, like he's taken himself somewhere deep inside. After a brief hesitation, from a deep impulse she doesn’t care to examine closely, Arihnda looks away from him, at the far wall, and in the same moment reaches over and wraps her right hand loosely over his left. For a moment, there is no response.

 

Then, Thrawn turns his hand over beneath hers, and curls his fingers around hers.

 

Whether that is for his own sake or out of kindness towards her, she doesn’t know. She doesn’t care, either. He’s given her permission and she takes it. She twists their grasps together, and turns slightly and reaches over with her free hand, so his hand in clasped in both of hers. The motion presses their sides together, even closer than when they’d been sitting on the bench. 

 

He’s silent almost the entire rest of the way to the Uscru District, and she doesn’t try to draw him out. But he leaves his hand in hers, and she thinks probably that means her message has gotten across. 

 

Finally, Thrawn says “Ours is the next stop,” and Arihnda says “Alright,” and squeezes his hand once, tightly, before pulling away from him.

 

But while they get off the train, he puts a hand on her back again, and when they’re through the gates of the platform, she reaches for his arm, and he lets her take it: he lets her curl her right arm around his left, her hand twisted up and around almost onto his shoulder; lets her cross left arm over her body and rest her hand posessively on his forearm; folds his arm against his side and middle in a way that locks her against him.

 

And all of that, she feels, is very good.

 

~*~

 

Thrawn had not planned on the incident on the train, nor did he particularly enjoy it. Nevertheless, it proved both informative and useful. In a sense it has solved for him the problem of what personal thing to reveal -- and it has revealed something about her, in turn. He is not entirely clear on whether her reactions are from pity or affection, but either option is workable, and whatever the precise balance of her sentiments, she clearly feels something. And, he is able to admit to himself, he found some pleasure in her behavior towards him, as well. 

 

He finds some pleasure, too, in the way she wraps herself around his arm and presses herself close to him on the walk from the train station to Vesari Fry-House, and appreciates very much the way she does all that without pressing him for conversation.

 

They do not converse again until he has secured a table for them in the restaurant. She gives him a warm, polite smile as he sits across from her that seems to indicate that she is willing to keep following his lead.

 

But he is more than ready to be sociable again.

 

“I have not asked how you departed Senator Renking’s employ,” he says casually, settling into his chair.

 

It is a mistake. The uncommon kindness of her expression falters, and the sense of her wanting to reach towards him dries like a streak of water under high noon sun. She very nearly recoils in her seat: a subtle drawing back against her chair, her shoulders hunching up a little, her hands moving towards each other on the table, fingers flexing nervously as if in search of some button that might raise a shield, her eyes flickering away from his, her gaze momentarily dropping to the table and sliding one way and then the other, like she will find a distraction for them both -- all short and quick before she tries to master herself again. An interesting reaction.

 

The she seems to force her gaze back to him. Her smile has a brittle quality.

 

“You need not answer of course,” he says smoothly before she can begin churning out words. And it is true; he does not expect the answer to be materially meaningful to his activities.

 

“It was -- it was just --”

 

“I gather it was unpleasant.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I apologize; I did not mean to pry.”

 

“Oh, no, it’s fine. I just haven’t talked about it much --”

 

“I understand. How did you come to work for Higher Skies? Perhaps that is a more pleasant topic.”

 

Her smile brightens instantly. Apparently, it is a much more pleasant topic.

 

“Oh,” she says, with a nervous, relieved, breathy laugh, “that’s a nice little story, actually, I think. Juahir set it up for me.”

 

“Indeed, did she? A good friend, I think.”

 

“Yes,” says Arihnda, laughing again. “Yes, I think she is. She, ah, she introduced me to Driller -- at Ascension week, actually, the first time we met? Anyway, he needed someone with some understanding of the mining industry, and she recommended me.”

 

“Very convenient.”

 

“For everyone involved, I think,” she says, half-laughing again. 

 

Her smile hasn’t wavered, although Thrawn is surprised to find himself struggling slightly not to disrupt her misapprehension of the situation. It is almost offensive that she should be so thoroughly blind to what he considers the most obvious truth. But this, he decides, this is not the appropriate place. And in any case, he has not yet decided how to broach the topic, or even if he should be the one to do it.

 

“Anyway,” she goes on, “Juahir dropped in on me a few months ago, brought Driller with her, and they took me to dinner at the Pinnacle -- a little ironic, isn’t it? -- and at the end of the night it turned out the entire set-up was a bit of a job interview.”

 

“Indeed.”

 

“Yes.” She leans forward a little, the hungry edge coming back into her smile. “I have quite a fond attachment to the Pinnacle, you know.”

 

Thrawn smiles very faintly in spite of himself. It is not an entirely kind smile. “I see that you do.”

 

There is a moment of silence; when it starts to stretch too long, he decides to press forward in his main line of inquiry. “Do you enjoy working for Mr. MarDapp?”

 

Arihnda sits back a little, frowning faintly, more thoughtful than unhappy. “I do, actually. He’s a very good boss, I think. And I like the work.”

 

“Indeed. Would you tell me about it?”

 

~*~

 

It’s as easy to talk to Thrawn about her work at Higher Skies as it was to talk to him about the opera, and maybe more enjoyable. He seems genuinely interested in the topic, and she’s happy to be able to talk about something that feels easy and comfortable for both of them. She feels almost like she’s doing something for him, although she can’t be sure. 

 

She tells him about some of the policy initiatives Higher Skies champions, about the way Driller likes to choose politicians to lobby, gives a few condensed play-by-plays of some of their better near-successes -- all in all, the couple of hours they spend eating slide by quite nicely.

 

The food’s not bad, either, and Thrawn foots the bill before she can object. She likes that, too: somehow it means more at a place like this than it does at the Pinnacle. Less like he’s spending to impress and more like it’s a matter of principle that he be the one treating her, even to something mundane.

 

She’s smiling very broadly when he offers her his arm at the end of the meal.

 

~*~

 

Thrawn has no interest in walking what he estimates to be the roughly ninety minutes from Vesari to Arihnda Pryce’s apartment, so he cuts off the option the moment they step outside the restaurant.

 

He drops her arm and says: “This has been a pleasant evening.”

 

“Yes, it has,” she says, crossing her arms as if to give them somewhere to go and turning to face him. There is a trace of eager uncertainty in her expression.

 

“I am afraid, however, that I must return to the Thunder Wasp.”

 

The happiness flickers out of her expression slightly, but she recovers well enough. “Of course,” she says. “Thank you for very much for dinner.”

 

“It was my pleasure. We will hail you an airspeeder; I think it is slightly far to walk.”

 

“I think I’ll be fine on the train, actually. We’re heading in opposite directions from here, aren’t we? The docks are --” she waves a hand.

 

“Indeed they are,” he says. “You are certain about the train?”

 

“I can travel fine on my own,” she says. It sounds like it might be a joke, but Thrawn is uncertain where the humor lies. “Besides,” she goes on, “I can’t spend all your money.”

 

His mouth twitches slightly, an ironic smile. “I believe you misunderstand the economics of serving as an officer in the Imperial Navy.”

 

“Do I?” she says in a tone that implies she understands perfectly. Her eyes are sparkling with invitation. “Maybe you’ll enlighten me someday.”

 

“Perhaps,” he says, still smiling slightly.

 

She makes no move to depart then. The moment seems to want something else to bring it to a close. And he is aware of the line he is treading: of the impression he is giving, and of the sorts of things that fit with it.

 

He still lets the moment drag on almost too long before deciding to pursue the easiest course. He lets the hopefulness and pleasure in her expression begin to flicker into wariness and discomfort before he takes her chin gently with a thumb and two fingers and lifts her face a little. Her arms seem to jump slightly where they are crossed against her chest, and then tighten. Her lips part slightly. He can almost hear her breath catch, and stop. Her eyes widen, just a little.

 

And he lets that moment drag on, too: he examines her features, suspended in eager anxiety and careful restraint, for a long minute before he leans down.

 

Her jaw, he has noticed, is not as narrow -- the actual set of her face not as heart-shaped -- as her hairstyle makes it at first glance appear. Beneath the neat illusion of her sharply-trimmed bob, her jaw is squarish: something made to be set stubbornly, like her personality. A strong jaw, that might take a hard blow well. He hopes for her sake the impression of solidity is apt as more than metaphor.

 

He leans down, and presses his lips to the heavy curve of her jaw: the strong joint that shows just beneath the severe line of her hair, just below her ear.  

 

He says “Goodnight” against her skin, softly, and feels her shiver before he stands again.

 

Her face has softened considerably. “Goodnight,” she says in a low, gentle tone.

 

He drops his hand from her chin. “I will see you soon, I hope,” he says.

 

“Yes,” she says. It’s half breath.

 

He smiles: a twist in his lips that is equally as genuine as it is arrogant. “Safe travels,” he says.

 

She seems to hug herself for a second. Her gaze is wandering hungrily over his face and he feels his smile deepen; he finds it is always nice to be appreciated. 

 

“To you, too,” she says, finally.

 

“Indeed,” he says. “Goodnight, Ms. Pryce.” He feels has found a place to bring the evening to a close. 

 

And he ought to depart immediately -- but he lets his gaze flicker up and down her figure briefly once more before turning on his heel. It is only a little indulgence, he tells himself. 

 

A little indulgence, he decides, is perfectly acceptable.


	3. empty as a pocket, with nothing to lose

Thrawn delays almost an entire day before sending her another message. There are three reasons for this. First, he is busy with the Thunder Wasp, and second, he makes time to consult with Yularen before proceeding. But the third is, he admits to himself, the most important.

 

Third is the state in which he wakes, too early, the morning after their dinner at Vesari.

 

He wakes into a strange half-conscious state, where dreams linger and the waking body is not properly connected to the semi-sleeping mind. He has a heightened tactile awareness of his bedding, and of the pleasure of resting in the soft warmth of tangled sheets and down pillows. One such pillow is propped oddly beneath his shoulder, and he turns into it as if it were a lover, which it seems would be a pleasant thing to have by his side. The idea is made almost more of sentiment than lust, but lust is certainly a driving factor: his hand has slid down his torso and his fingers have begun massaging the most sensitive places of his stiff cock before his mind has fully sorted out that he even has an erection. 

 

All of that is normal, and tolerable.

 

What he dislikes is the way his mind, with dream-logic, supplies the suggestion of a petite human woman with dark hair and bright eyes as a source of pleasure. His mind supplies the idea of her soft-looking curves in place of the pillow; supplies the fantasy of her small, warm hands on his cock in place of his own touch; supplies the suggestion of her breathy laugh and her low voice and her soft, good-smelling skin --

 

Somewhere in his reverie dream-logic gives way to proper wakefulness, and he pulls his hand off his cock with a fast motion, as if he had burned himself, and taking heavy breaths, presses his head back against the mattress in frustration.

 

This is somewhat more than a little indulgence.

 

He wrestles with himself for a couple of minutes about whether to just finish or not. While he finds it necessary from time to time, he does not make a regular habit of masturbation; shared quarters have often made it difficult to find proper privacy, and he finds the discipline he’d developed in his youth around quashing the urge useful for a number of reasons. 

 

More importantly, he has not indulged this way even in a fantasy of a human since leaving the Ascendancy. He has had sex several times, but those distractions had not included any -- 

 

He has been faithful to his people. For the entire duration of his time in the Empire up until this moment, he has considered himself true to them in every way.

 

He keeps his eyes closed and takes a series of slow breaths. There’s no relief from the pressure in his cock, which is still hard, curved stiffly upward, pointing towards his belly.

 

Another few breaths, and he tries a compromise with himself. Tries to summon up a vision of a Chiss: of an appropriate partner. A image meant to remind him of his purpose, of his commitment to his mission. He constructs, with effort, a fragile invention.

 

Maintaining it proves to be more effort than he considers worthwhile, and in the end, hand slowing considerably, mind wandering over the contours of a soft-focus fantasy that presses up again and again from the depth of his mind, he gives up, and touches his cock idly, almost soothingly, while thinking of Arihnda Pryce’s soft hands, which have been so gentle against his arm, shoulder, wrist, hand...

 

The bizarre reverie elides from self-pleasure into mere self-examination and after a few minutes he abandons entirely the idea of orgasm.

  
He lies still for a minute, feels his cock soften, contract, and retreat. Then, sighing, he rises from his bed.

 

The first thing he does after emerging from the fresher is contact Colonel Yularen, and arrange an appointment to discuss Higher Skies in person. Perhaps it is time to bring her in, and see what use the ISB might make of her.

 

~*~

 

“These late nights are going to catch up to you,” Juahir says teasingly, sliding a mug of caf across the counter-top to Arihnda.

 

“I think it’s my job to say that to you,” says Arihnda, settling onto a stool and wrapping her hands around the mug.

 

Juahir leans on the counter, putting her weight on her elbows, and smiles. “Yeah, I know. It’s kind of fun to turn the tables, though.” 

 

Arihnda does look tired -- but not in a bad way, Juahir thinks. She looks like someone who… like someone who’s carrying the cozy warmth of their bed around with them: awake enough to function, but not entirely part of the hustle of the day. She looks  _ relaxed,  _ Juahir realizes. Maybe for the first time ever since Ascension week. 

 

Juahir remembers the last time they’d hung out easily as friends --  _ you can make this stuff too hot. Told you.  _ Juahir remembers the way Arihnda’s ability to relax and enjoy herself had… died, just  _ died _ , after that horrible night at the Alisandre. The way she’d crawled up inside herself and just… stopped. Pretty much stopped being social altogether, until after six months of near-total radio silence Driller had mentioned he needed someone who understood mining and Juahir had seen a perfect solution to Arihnda’s problems.

 

Arihnda had become a little more like her old self since starting to work for Driller, but this is another level entirely.

 

And it’s a really, really good look on her friend, Juahir decides. But Juahir’s probably been looking at Arihnda a little too long, because Arihnda frowns, and seems to bristle, and withdraw. 

 

“What?” Arihnda says. “What’s that look for?”

 

Juahir grins. “Just wondering when the wedding’s gonna be.”

 

“Oh, for shak’s sake,” says Arihnda huffing with irritation, “what is  _ wrong  _ with you?”

 

“I never learned any fancy senate manners,” Juahir says, taking deep pleasure in needling Arihnda -- taking deep pleasure in the fact that Arihnda seems willing to be needled for the first time in a very, very long time. Still grinning, Juahir hops onto a stool across from Arihnda, and picks up her own cup of caf. “So…”

 

“Yes?” says Arihnda with exaggerated, prim annoyance.

 

“So, tell me about him.”

 

For a minute, Juahir thinks Arihnda is just going to snap at her and then kriff off. It’s always a possibility. But Arihnda looks down into her mug of caf for a minute, frowning gently.

 

Finally, voice soft, she says: “He’s nice.”

 

~*~

 

For Thrawn, the readouts from the yesterday’s round of test exercises means a preview of how the ship might fare under combat conditions. 

 

For Eli, Thrawn’s review of the CIC readouts means another round of adjustments to the roster. 

 

Eli knows that Thrawn’s mind is elsewhere because Hammerly’s truly awful performance on her weapon’s station doesn’t get any comment. The woman had gotten distracted by some interesting puzzle she’d seen in the movement of asteroids in the field of her targeting solution, and had launched missiles a fraction of a second too late for two simulations in a row. Osgoode had just about murdered her with his bare hands.

 

Thrawn had been handling some nonsense with centcom directly and hadn’t been present, but Eli had fully expected the disaster to be noted, and for Thrawn to request a change in the roster.

 

“Sir,” says Eli, trying to control his annoyance, “are you sure you don’t want Hammerly moved off this station? We could always use another weapon’s analyst --”

 

Eli’s actually pretty proud of that suggestion, which he thinks is a very Thrawn-like solution in its way, so he’s more than a little annoyed when Thrawn barely shifts his attention to Hammerly’s station’s readout long enough to say “No, we will leave her where she is for the moment, thank you, Ensign.”

 

Eli bites his tongue just long enough not to say something stupid, and then says, carefully: “Sir, may I ask why?”

 

Why is usually a good question with Thrawn.

 

It’s not such a good question today.

 

“Because I would prefer weapons officers who can do more than rotely follow procedure,” says Thrawn shortly without looking up from his workstation. 

 

Thrawn doesn’t sound sharp so much as he sounds… maybe tired, Eli thinks with an inkling of concern. The kind of tired that makes people short-tempered and exasperated -- and dumb. 

 

Then Thrawn takes a breath that almost sounds like a sigh. And that’s definitely unusual.

 

“Hammerly’s tendency to become engrossed in a problem,” Thrawn says, eyes still on his workstation, “will be easier to correct than it will be for me to train an officer with a lesser mind to solve complex conundrums as they arise, should I ever require someone on the bridge with such a talent.” Then Thrawn turns his attention fully to Eli and says with slightly more patience: “I do not question the motives of your suggestions, Ensign, but I would prefer we work to improve Hammerly’s ability to perform under combat conditions rather than lose access to her other talents. Do you understand?”

 

And it clicks for Eli that whatever is bothering Thrawn isn’t the duty roster, or any problem with Eli’s own work, or anything in the CIC readouts -- or even anything with centcom. Thrawn had had to drag himself back from somewhere much too far away of any of that to be the problem.

 

And Eli is pretty sure he knows what the problem is.

 

“Yes, sir,” says Eli. “Thank you.” That’s more than he needs to say, but he wants to soften the air in the room a little before asking what’s suddenly become his real question.

 

“Of course,” says Thrawn, returning his attention to the workstation.

 

Eli gives it another minute and then says, with a calculated lack of care: “Sir, can I ask how your work with Colonel Yularen is going?”

 

For a minute, Thrawn’s jaw tightens considerably -- his whole body seems to still, and tense. Then he relaxes, and he looks from the workstation to Eli. “Very well so far, I believe. I presume you would like to remain involved in our investigation of Nightswan?”

 

_ I’d like to know what the fuck you’re doing to that woman,  _ Eli thinks. He says: “Yes, sir. It’s an… it’s an interesting puzzle.”

 

Thrawn smiles faintly, almost like he’s happy. “It is indeed. Be assured, Ensign, I will include you when it is appropriate.”

 

~*~

 

Arihnda is late to the office for the first time ever. She’s not…  _ technically  _ she’s not late, but usually she makes sure to arrive at her desk half an hour before the office opens. The quiet lets her put her mind in order, plan her day, and feel settled and in control by the time things get rolling around her. It’s strange and off-putting to arrive at the same time as everyone else.

 

But breakfast with Juahir had been…  Talking about the two… the two _ dates _ she’s had with Thrawn… it’s been so long since she’s been on a date with anyone, let alone enjoyed it, and to have two in a row, to be  _ asked  _ twice in a row, and…

 

Breakfast goes on a long time, and Arihnda enjoys chatting with Juahir about something happy almost as much as she’d enjoyed the dates themselves. She’ll just have to be more careful with her time, if she wants to visit with her friend more and still have her regular mornings at the office. 

 

She can manage that.

 

~*~

 

“Thrawn, good to see you.”

 

“Thank you, Colonel,” says Thrawn. 

 

He looks drawn, Yularen thinks. He’s seen the look before; it doesn’t flatter the man. It doesn’t flatter anyone.

 

“Take a seat, please,” Yularen says. “Would you care for some caf? Tea, maybe?”

 

Thrawn sinks into the couch with rather more weight than he had on his last visit. “No, thank you Colonel,” he says. 

 

He sounds tired, too, Yularen decides. With a certain degree of finality, Yularen flicks off his workstation and his desk comm. Then, pointedly, he turns his full attention to Thrawn.

 

“So, out with it. How can I help?”

 

~*~

 

Arihnda doesn’t hear from Thrawn until the late afternoon, and she starts to feel a little uncomfortable about it. Maybe she’d overestimated how much he enjoyed her company. He’d left rather… pointedly, maybe? Last night? And there had been that moment on the train… But he’d touched, her, too, in a way that didn’t feel like goodbye -- 

 

She’s almost more relieved than happy when he sends her a message.

 

_ Would you care to accompany me to the season premiere of Chalice and Altar tomorrow evening? _

 

She replies almost immediately.  _ Absolutely. Will you pick me up from work? _

 

~*~

 

In the end, he and Yularen had agreed that it was, probably, too early to risk trying to flip a mole who might as easily give them up, but Thrawn spends a great deal of the evening wondering if perhaps that had been unwise.

 

The problem does not really lie with her.

 

She does not make him wait at all when he arrives at her office to retrieve her. She greets him with the same wide-and-open smile she had displayed in response to the Candlewick flowers. He returns a small smile of his own with only moderate effort. If nothing else, he has a certain restrained admiration for the added care she has taken with her attire. She has opted for the same dress as before, which confirms his suspicions as to her means, but she has added a few subtle pieces of understated jewelry: thin strands of sparkling silver that match the buttons of his dress tunic and lay against her décolletage like the contour lines of a map, and long strings of the same metal that drip from her ears and accentuate the elegant column of her throat. He finds these little details more appealing than is entirely comfortable.

 

On the way to the restaurant -- he has chosen the Pinnacle, again -- they exchange standard pleasantries, and she asks him about the show they will be seeing. Recounting the general outline of the libretto and embellishing his discourse with a few pieces of trivia about the composer consumes a reasonable amount of time, but they lapse into silence as they arrive at their destination. 

 

She seems willing to pick up the conversational slack on his behalf, and asks about his recent work. What exactly does he do while his ship is in the docks, if he can tell her about it? Explaining in slightly more than layman’s terms the business of assessing the crew and reordering the duty roster lets him imitate communicativeness with a minimum of effort, as does answering her questions about how ships are refitted, although he suspects she knows a great deal more about that topic than she lets on. He wonders if perhaps she drove the conversation here intentionally, to give him something easy to describe -- playing, in her way, the skilled and gracious hostess once again.

 

When that topic, too, runs dry, there is a silence between that is, for the first time, awkward.

 

He covers it by reaching across the table and taking her fingers in his.

 

It makes her face light up, predictably, in a way that sparks within him a brief pulse of vaguely angry melancholy. And again, as at Vesari, he almost decides to explain to her the truth of her situation. There is a little bit of spite, he suspects, in the urge -- but he is certain there is good intent as well. Perhaps he should cancel the opera, and take her to Yularen after all, and help her through the next steps of what will doubtless be a painful process.

 

Her fingers twist happily against his own and she seems very content to substitute touch for talk.

 

Or perhaps, the thinks, he should shield her from what is coming for a little longer. 

 

She tightens her fingers against his and leans forward a little. “Did you know I’d never been to a play before coming to Coruscant?”

 

~*~

 

If Arihnda had to guess, she’d guess something was bothering him -- weighing on him. 

 

She’d also guess it was none of her business. 

 

While it’s a little bit of a strain to do most of the work that keeps them talking, she doesn’t mind  _ so  _ much. She tries to stick to topics that might take his mind of whatever his troubles are, and she doesnt work overly-hard to keep them conversing when it doesn’t feel natural. She doesn’t mind the moments of quiet. She especially doesn’t mind that he seems content to let physical closeness take the place to chatter from time to time, including on the walk from the restaurant to the theater, which they take, arm-in-arm, in almost total silence.

 

In its way, the silence is a good prelude to  _ Chalice,  _ which is a great deal heavier than  _ Beelthrak.  _ The story, about a pair of lovers who have made vows to separate and opposed societies that prevent them from being together, and who take out on one another with bitter cruelty their frustrations at being unable to be together, didn’t move her as a  _ plot,  _ particularly -- it hadn’t sounded overly affecting when Thrawn had summarized it earlier -- but the music seems to reach someplace inside her.

 

She’s quiet when the curtain goes down at intermission.

 

So is he, for a couple of minutes, before finally saying: “You dislike it.”

 

“No,” she says quickly, turning in her seat to find him watching her critically. “No, I don’t -- I just --”

 

“It is not a very happy story,” he allows.

 

“No,” she says, looking back towards the stage, as if the drawn curtain might impart a secret to her. “No, it isn’t.”

 

He gives her another minute of silence, then says: “I do not suppose you wish to go down to the mezzanine.”

 

“I -- no, I’m sorry,” she says, feeling almost apologetic, turning to look at him again. “I’d just… I think I’d like to just sit for a minute, if you don’t mind?”

 

His tilts his head slightly, and he looks thoughtful. “No,” he says, “I do not mind.”

 

~*~

 

Thrawn is somewhat surprised to see her so moved. She is subtle about it, more or less restraining her sentiments, but it is clear that  _ Chalice  _ has touched her in some way, and loosed a kind of leaden sorrow which weighs her down in her chair. It is an interesting reaction; he wonders what from her own life the story, or perhaps the score, has awakened, and he is content to sit with her in silence and puzzle over the question.

 

And she is very pleasant to look at, even when her mood is low.

 

~*~

 

The second half of the evening is worse for Arihnda than the first. The finale of the show, where the lovers, distraught at their inability to fulfill their vows, commit suicide together, actually strikes her as offensive, and almost makes her angry. She applauds for the singers, but only politely, and then has to try and will herself to find the energy to stand and leave.

 

Beside her, Thrawn says: “Shall we go?”

 

“Yes,” she says, sounding as dull as she feels. “Yes, just give me one minute.”

 

“Of course.”

 

~*~

 

Interesting indeed, Thrawn thinks, waiting for her to give some sign that she is ready -- or more appropriately, able -- to depart. Eventually, she turns her attention from the empty stage, gives him a wan smile, and lets him put a hand against her back as she rises from her chair.

 

She does not seem pleased by the contact, this time -- but neither does she seem distressed by it. She seems, somehow, far away from him.

 

That too, is interesting.

 

~*~

 

Thrawn doesn’t press her about the show until they are on the broad patio in front of the opera house. He stops when they are roughly in the center, drops his hand from her back -- lower than it was last time -- and turns to her.

 

“Would you care to walk with me?”

 

She takes a short breath. She would almost rather be alone. Instead, she says: “Yes.”

 

There’s a little pause and then he holds out his arm, almost questioning. She takes it, lightly, and they set off towards her home. Evidently, he remembers the way.

 

They walk in silence for a little while before he says: “You did not like it.”

 

“No,” she says, drawing to a stop beneath a streetlamp, digging her fingers into his arm and turning to face him at the same time. “No, it’s not that -- I’m very glad you took me, just --”

 

“It is not a requirement of mine that you like the piece simply because I chose it,” he says, moving in a way that makes her drop his arm. Facing her fully, he continues: “It is a classic, not a personal favorite.”

 

She purses her lips and let sher arms fall loosely to her sides. “It’s not?”

 

“No. Tell me what you thought of it.”

 

She struggles for a minute to find something polite to say -- struggles very hard, in fact, not wanting to sound uncouth -- but finally, in frustration, balling her hands into fists, she vents her real opinion: “I thought it was stupid,” she snaps.

 

Someone in the streams of people passing in either direction around them whips their head around. She hardly notices. In the pool of light, she and Thrawn may as well be alone in the galaxy.

 

He raises his eyebrows. “Did you?”

 

“Yes! Yes. Everything they -- none of the things they were fighting so hard for mattered at all, not at  _ all,  _ and all they ended up doing was hurting themselves when they could have -- I mean, they could have had everything they’d wanted. Everything. They just -- just --”

 

“Chose to deny themselves,” Thrawn supplies mildly.

 

“ _ Exactly,”  _ she says with feeling. “That’s exactly it.”

 

Thrawn watches her quietly for a minute, then says: “Do you not consider that to be noble?”

 

“I consider it immensely foolish.”

 

“Is there not something to be said for devotion to one’s duty?”

 

“I -- of course there is,” she says, shoulders sagging a little, “of course there is, but I don’t think there  _ was  _ any conflict between their duties and their -- their wants -- not materially, anyway.”

 

“Not  _ materially,”  _ Thrawn repeats. His face, sober and almost impassive, is impossible to read.

 

“No,” she says. 

 

“And you do not believe the immaterial to matter?”

 

“I certainly don’t consider it a meaningful bar to action,” she says with annoyance.

 

For a second, she thinks his impassive expression is hiding distaste, disagreement, disdain -- that he considered  _ Chalice  _ much more personally meaningful than he’d let on and that she’d said all the wrong things, no matter if they were true, and that his good opinion of her was about to vanish as utterly as smoke.

 

And then he smiles.

 

He snorts, almost a laugh, and his mouth twists in a small, close-lipped grin, and his eyes slide away from her for a minute. For a minute, looking past her, he looks like he is laughing privately at something.

 

Then, whole demeanor lightened, he returns his gaze to her.

 

“I do not disagree, Ms. Pryce.”

 

She finds herself smiling, too, and almost laughing -- mostly from relief. “No?”

 

“No, not at all.” He keeps smiling softly, slightly wickedly, at her for a minute, and then offers her his arm again. “Shall we go?”

 

Laughing softly, entirely from relief, she takes back his arm. She winds herself around it, almost, clings to it with both hands, and presses to his side. “Yes,” she says, “yes, let’s go.”

 

“Arihnda Pryce,” he says after a few minutes of walking, laughing softly, “eminent materialist.”

 

“Oh -- what,” she says, laughing too, “I thought you agreed with me.”

 

“I do -- I do --” he is still half-laughing -- “it is a fine way of viewing the world.”

 

“Well I hardly see a sensible alternative,” she says, still finding everything easily, marvellously, unaccountably funny, “you certainly can’t build light cruisers out of spiritual beliefs.”

 

“Indeed not,” he says, tightening his arm against her. “I see we share certain values.”

 

“Do we?”

 

“Pragmatism, I think.”

 

“I don’t know about that. You’re the fan of opera.”

 

~*~

 

The rest of the walk back to her apartment is, in Thrawn’s estimation, quite pleasant. She is amenable to gentle teasing, and doesn’t seem to mind his laughing at her expense. She sends little barbs back, which he does not entirely like but which he finds at least tolerable. More than that, she is pressed comfortably against him in a way that makes him feel that perhaps she would see no meaningful conflict between his business with Yularen and the things he now thinks he wants. More than that, he is increasingly certain she would enjoy the latter.

 

He rather agrees with her assessment of  _ Chalice _ . Certain types of self-denial are, more or less, stupid.

 

~*~

 

When they reach her apartment building, she lets go of his arm and slips her hand into his without thinking about it. He doesn’t let go, or pull away. He seems, she thinks, to be waiting for her this time.

 

And she doesn’t feel any nervousness about what she wants to ask.

 

“Would you like to come up? I can make caf -- a little perk before you have to --”

 

“I would love to.”

 

~*~

 

The smile that cracks her face from ear to ear almost makes him laugh out loud. It is  _ very  _ good, he decides, to be so liked.

 

He leaves his hand in hers as she leads him into her building and up to her apartment. He understands from their conversations that she lives with Juahir Madras. He wonders vaguely if that woman will be home, and if she is, if he will learn anything meaningful from her presence, or from interacting with her.

 

As it turns out, Juahir Madras is not present. 

 

No matter, he decides.

 

Arihnda Pryce turns to face him as they enter, dropping his hand, practically spinning on her toes. 

 

“Just wait one second would you? I'd like to put my purse down -- and --” she looks a little embarrassed suddenly -- “I need the fresher. I’ll only be a second.”

 

“Of course,” he says. She flashes him a grateful smile, heads off down a hall to his left. “Where is the fresher, may I ask?” he calls after her.

 

“Just at the end of this hall,” she calls back. “Juahir has a master bath in her room, its over past the kitchen.”

 

Two wings to the apartment then. Lives lived in parallel, on either side of neutral territory.

 

He is still standing in the doorway when she returns from the fresher. He can see that makes her falter, for just a second. Doubtless she feels rude, as if his choosing to wait in one place rather than helping himself to seating were somehow her failure.

 

But she recovers well.

 

“This is it,” she says, gesturing casually, trying to be pleasant. “There’s a couch -- the kitchen is just over here -- make yourself comfortable, I suppose. You don’t mind instant caf?”

 

“No, not at all,” he says, watching her closely. Her smile has faltered, but the slight anxiety that has muted it is not, he thinks, a bad sign in the least. He notices her jewelry is missing.

 

She stays still for a moment, searching his face, then makes herself smile wider: the good hostess.

 

“Well, take a seat, I’ll be back in a minute.”

 

“I will be waiting,” he says evenly. He makes no move towards the couch. After a hesitant second, she turns and heads to the kitchen anyway. 

 

“How do you take it?” she calls out as she goes. “Cream, sugar?”

 

He gives it another minute before deciding. He thinks the decision will go well.

 

~*~

 

He doesn’t answer her when she asks about the caf -- which is fine, she can just go out and ask again. She sets the water to heat -- the instant kettle isn’t  _ exactly  _ instant but it’s fast enough -- pulls two mugs out of the cabinet, and sets caf packets next to them. Two packets next to each mug -- she doesn’t know how strong he takes it either. She’ll have to ask about that, too. Which is, of course, her next move. She turns --

 

And stops.

 

“I thought I might join you here,” he says from his place in the doorway of the kitchen.

 

She feels herself drawing back a little, bracing herself against the counter, trying to look casual. The mugs of caf are by her left hand, the kettle heating on the stove to her right -- it runs on its own power, but it's a convenient spot.

 

“Of course,” she says. “Please come in. I didn’t ask how strong you take it, either --”

 

He crosses the small kitchen at a slow pace -- or maybe it just feels slow to Arihnda -- and stops before her. Stops, very, very close to her. Her heart does something unexpected and a little funny in her chest, a sort of backflip. He holds her gaze for a minute, then drops his gaze to the right of her, reaches past her, picks up one of the instant caf packets. He examines it for a minute, during which Arihnda’s heart seems to crawl up into the base of throat.

 

“I have never had this brand before,” he says easily. “I will take it however you do, I suppose,”  he adds, tossing the packet aside casually and returning his attention to her.

 

“I usually take two --” 

 

“Then I will take two, as well, Ms. Pryce,” he says, without moving.

 

“You could call me Arihnda,” she says softly.

 

“Arihnda,” he repeats gravely.

 

He’s been closer to her than this, so it feels ridiculous to have to remind herself to keep breathing. But it’s only now, having him in her home, that she is starting to feel nervous. She hasn’t really thought ahead about how far she might want to go -- or how far he might want to push. She’s had sex before, a few times, but never --  well, she has liked people this well before, but not for some time, and it hadn’t ever worked out. And all of those men had been human. He looks human enough, acts human enough, but she has no idea, she realizes, if that might be true all over --

 

Behind her, the instant kettle begins to whine.

 

Thrawn reaches past her right arm and, letting his gaze flicker away from her face, turns it off.

 

Then he returns his attention to her. 

 

Arihnda feels her breath whistling softly across dry lips, feels her eyes widen, seems to see more light than before, feels her heart fluttering -- 

 

~*~

 

Her lips are parted and her eyes are wide, pupils dilating. Her breathing is shallow and her skin is warming with arousal. She licks her lips; her chest rises and falls faintly. She lifts her right hand from the counter and curls her fingers against the base of her throat. 

 

Yes, Thrawn thinks, he has a made a decision that will turn out well indeed.

 

~*~

 

Slowly, very slowly, he puts a hand on her right hip.

 

“Arihnda,” he says again, softly, holding her gaze.

 

She thinks her heart might beat its way right out of her chest. She can hardly breathe. She grips the counter tight with her left hand, feels tense all over, feels almost light-headed -- “What should I call you?” she asks, voice coming out as nervous as a girl’s. It’s almost a ploy to slow him down more than a question. “Still just Commander?”

 

His lips twitch a little, as if he is holding in a laugh. “If you wish,” he says. Then he raises his free hand, and slides it gently against her face. “Or you may call me Thrawn.”

 

Her breathing is so shallow that it seems to exist almost only in her mouth. She licks her lips again. “Thrawn,” she says softly, almost a whisper.

 

“Yes,” he says, a sudden strange intensity in his tone.

 

She takes her hand from her throat, puts it lightly in the middle of his chest. “Thrawn,” she says again.

 

He doesn’t say anything, this time. Instead, he slides his right hand around the base of her skull, slides his left hand from her hip to her waist, and leans close, slowly, bringing his face close to hers -- so close --  _ so  _ close --

 

And then he stops again. He is looking at her intently.

 

Watching him, wide-eyed, Arihnda thinks he looks almost like he is waiting for permission. Taking one last shallow breath, she curls her fingers into the front of his uniform, and, closing her eyes, tilts her chin up and forward.

 

For the space of a heartbeat, he still doesn’t act.

 

And then he kisses her.


	4. in early memory, mission music was ringing 'round my nursery door

The kiss unfolds in layers.

 

There’s no great revelation in it, no dramatic crash of his mouth on hers, none of the ferocity that holovids use as a byword for passion -- it’s much better than that, Arihnda thinks.

 

It’s gentle.

 

He cups the back of her head like she’s precious, and at first only brushes his lips against her so softly it almost makes her sigh. It does, in fact, make her moan, just a little: a very soft, high sound that makes her blush when she hears herself.

 

Then he slides the hand that’s on her waist around to her back, and presses her middle against his, and presses his mouth to hers again, just as softly. Arihnda feels her lips part, feels his lips move gently against hers, and, moaning again, she lifts her free hand from the counter and touches the side of his face.

 

He pulls back for a second then, pulling her upper lip gently as he does, and looks at her. “Good?” he asks softly.

 

She feels unfocused, light and warm, and she’s looking at his mouth. She nods.

 

He lifts his hand from her head, runs his fingers through her hair, and then pulls her close again.

 

~*~

 

When he runs his tongue lightly against her lower lip, she opens for him without hesitation, and she seems almost to melt against him. 

 

When he deepens the contact between their mouths into something that finally feels like a proper kiss, something he has not enjoyed for some time, she moans again, a low sound this time, and flexes her hand where it’s bunched in his uniform front, and curves her body against his. He can feel arousal beginning to build: his cock beginning to stir deep inside, the muscles that protect it beginning to contract, opening --

 

Without breaking the kiss, which she is doing an apt and pleasing job of following, he moves his hands, grasps her waist firmly, and then, breaking his mouth from hers only briefly, lifts her up and back onto the counter.

 

It knocks the mugs over; they go clattering across the countertop. One falls to the ground, and shatters.

 

“Oh,” she says, eyes starting to come back into focus, searching for the source of the noise.

 

“No matter,” he says, cupping her face with one hand and making her look at him. He wants her to look only at him, he decides very suddenly. Only at him. Nowhere else. “I will replace it.”

 

“Oh?” Her gaze wanders, slightly confusedly, back to his mouth. Exactly as he wants.

 

“Yes,” he says, “tomorrow.”

 

“Tomorrow,” she repeats, beginning to lean towards him again. “Tomorrow,” she says again.

 

“Tomorrow,” he murmurs, pulling her face close.

 

This time, there is as much hunger in the action of her mouth as in his. Perhaps more. 

 

~*~

 

Arihnda is taller than him, barely, when she’s sitting on the counter, and she gets to lean forward into him in the most fantastically wanton-feeling way, slipping her arms around his neck and pressing her breasts against his chest, while he runs his hand along her sides, and her back, and curves his palms and fingers around her ribcage in a way that makes her moan deeply and sigh with contentment -- Arihnda can not even remember the last time that kissing someone felt so good.

 

When he moves his mouth to her neck, she lets her head loll back like a rag doll’s, and sighs, and when his mouth reaches the swell of her breasts she bunches her fingers in his hair and groans. 

 

~*~

 

Human bodies are, in Thrawn’s experience, much softer than Chiss. He had found it a little bizarre at first: almost too-tender flesh so open to his touch, paper-thin skin and soft fat deposits and precious veins all hideously vulnerable to fingers, nails, teeth, or worse. Bizarre, but not… not entirely unpleasant to the touch, he had found.

 

And certainly he does not find the soft flesh and fragile skin of her breasts unpleasant against his lips. She feels delicate, alluringly so, in a way that invites him to play a kind of slow-spun game of careful touches: finding the pressure, the action, that is enough to make her respond, but not so much to make her hurt. 

 

The line is very fine for humans, sometimes, between pleasure and pain: between the soft gasp and the sharp yelp, the happy sigh and the confused, sad whimper. 

 

Walking along it is a very pleasant game, with very worthwhile rewards. He moves his hand against her breast, and she makes another sound, and arches her back, and scrapes her fingers against the base of his skull. Inside him, his cock stirs again, and begins to press outward.

 

Very worthwhile rewards, he thinks. 

 

~*~

 

Thrawn has edged his hips between her knees. He’s looped one arm around her middle, and is squeezing one of her breasts gently with his other hand, and he’s trailing his mouth along the low neckline of her dress as if he has all the time in the galaxy to do this, and only this.

 

But Arihnda, who is starting to feel a pleasant, warm humming deep between her legs, is feeling a little more hurried.

 

She moves her hands, pushes at his shoulder with one, lifts his face with the other, intends to say something  _ like let’s go to bed,  _ but instead just looks at his face, his parted lips, his curious, slightly entertained-looking expression, and puts her hands on either side of his face, and pulls him close and kisses him.

 

That goes on for a little while, she isn’t entirely sure how long, and it’s very pleasant, in her estimation.

 

Then Thrawn pulls away from her, slowly. He pushes one of his hands a little awkwardly up to her face -- their arms almost get in the way of one another -- and brushing her cheek gently with his thumb, says: “Where is your bed?”

 

For a second, Arihnda shivers all over with something that’s almost like joy, and for that second, she forgets how to answer. 

 

Instead, she cranes forward and kisses him again.

 

~*~

 

When he asks where her bed is, her face does something supremely idiotic that nearly makes him laugh. She kisses him before he can start, which saves him having to master himself. He smiles against her mouth as she moves her lips against his, and then closes his arm tight around her middle and pulls her forward, into him, and off the counter.

 

She makes a surprised sound against his mouth, and blinks up at him, licking her lips, as he sets her on her feet. That expression, too, almost makes him laugh. It is not really at her expense _ ,  _ although he admits it is not entirely from generosity of spirit, either. She has her fingers curled into the shoulders of his tunic, and she looks slightly befuddled, slightly baffled from desire, in a truly delicious way. 

 

The bulge of his cock, half-hard, is beginning to press into his clothing. He is not really concerned about what she will think of it; generally his human partners have responded quite positively to his appearance, and they have responded universally well to the feel of him. He would like to get ahead to that part of things with her. He would like to be naked, and he would like for her to be naked, as well.

 

He cups her face and says: “Where is your bed, Arihnda? Where do you sleep?”

 

“Oh,” she sighs against him, leaning up to kiss him again, which he breaks short, gently, “over there.” She doesn’t make any move to indicate where ‘there’ might be. He knows which hall to go down, of course, but it seems more appropriate to have her lead.

 

“Where?” he asks again. “Show me.”

 

She shakes her head, seems to recover herself, then takes his hand. There’s something very innocent in that, he thinks, and very charming. Something -- happy. She seems happy. Not only with him, but with life.

 

That thought breaks him from the moment. 

 

This would all be easier if he were able to view her with a little more disdain, to see both her happiness here and her blindness around Higher Skies and her friends as a sign of stupidity. Instead, he knows it is something quite different. 

 

It is much the same, he thinks, as the sort of blindness that had once afflicted Thrass.

 

He feels his arousal deaden. 

 

It is only at the last moment, before she has to tug on his hand, that he commands his feet to follow her.

 

He will tell her about Higher Skies himself, he decides as a sort of compromise as she leads him out of the kitchen. He will tell her, and when he does, he will be as gentle as he can.

 

~*~

 

This is all moving maybe a little bit faster than Arihnda would normally go, but she doesn’t really care. She feels -- the conversation she’d had with Juahir the night she’d been hired by Driller comes back to her. Juahir asking if anyone had swept her off her feet. How unhappy the question had made her feel, how it had reminded her how alone she was.

 

She hadn’t really been waiting for someone from a noble house to whisk her away from her life. She’d just been looking for… for someone she could talk to, who seemed to like talking to her. Someone who treated her like a person, and who made her feel good, and who seemed to feel good themselves from being around her. Whenever she’d had to explain to herself what she was looking for, she’d called it a ‘ _ balanced emotional connection _ .’ 

 

She’s pretty sure she’d been looking for this.

 

And if he isn’t human, well -- most of him is. And as for the rest... she’d felt  _ something  _ when she’d been pressed against him in the kitchen. It had felt… normal, as far as she could tell, although admittedly she couldn’t tell much through the uniform. Whatever it is, they’ll figure it out. It’s much less important than everything else, anyway, she thinks. As long as he’s reasonably pleased with her, and if he’s willing to stick around a while, she’ll learn to be pleased with him.

 

She holds Thrawn’s hand very tightly as she leads him, quite quickly, to her room.

 

~*~

 

Arihnda Pryce’s room is modest and spare. He notices many small details, and many absences, that suit her personality, but none are the focus of the moment. He will have time later, he supposes, to examine the space at leisure.

 

For now, the only things that matter are the bed -- it is wedged against a wall and is just slightly wider than a single person might need, though not by much -- and her.

 

She radiates a curious blend of certainty and anxiety that he attributes mostly to excitement, and somewhat  to the normal neuroses humans attach to sex. And for her, who is at least in spirit a creature of the Core Worlds, likely to the taboo of giving her body to a non-human, although she has seemed thus far very unbothered about his species, and reasonably sensitive to his position in her Empire. In any case, that is all navigable. 

 

He has, of course, some discomforts, some twinges of conscience, of his own, but he has made a choice to set them aside -- or at least he has decided to try. The compromise he has had made with himself on the short walk here is almost enough to soothe his second-guessing. 

 

Almost.

 

When she pulls him into her room, she drops his hand almost immediately, turning to face him, and smooths the front of her dress as if they were in a ballroom. She is looking at him with an expression that is half eager, half trepitdatious.

 

He lets her hang there, observing the small details of her face, until she says: “So.”

 

“So,” he repeats, looking around the room pointedly, so she can see him doing so.

 

“This is - this is it, I suppose,” she says. “Home sweet home,” she adds, trying for light humor.

 

He stops looking around the room, and looks evenly at her.

 

She eyes him back, looking for a readable signal.

 

He doubts she can read the amended deal he is making with himself. He  _ will  _ tell her about Higher Skies; he will guide her through that difficult territory with care. 

 

But he will not do it  _ yet. _

 

He will, instead, treat her in a way that satisfies his sense of her fragility: careful of the weakness of which he is aware, and she is not. He will, as he thought before, preserve the stars in her eyes a little longer.

 

As at Vesari, he lets the moment stretch almost too long before he acts.

 

But only almost.

 

~*~

 

He looks at her in silence, expression neutral, for so long she starts to think that maybe he's changed his mind. She doesn't know where the turn would have come from, but he’s looking at her so strangely -- maybe he's decided he doesn't want to be here after all. Maybe -- she's just beginning to frown -- 

 

He’s only one step away from her, a single long stride that he covered easily, something almost like tenderness, such a strange expression, coming into his face as he steps to her, and takes her face in his hands, tilts her head back so she is looking up at him --

 

She feels her back curve forwards towards him, puts her own hands on top of his, feels her own expression softening --

 

~*~

 

It certainly does not hurt matters that her mouth feels so good against his own, he thinks.

 

~*~

 

It's just as good a kiss as in the kitchen. Better, maybe. Slower, more careful.  _ Tender _ , she thinks.

 

Somewhere in the middle of it, he wraps his arms around her, and then he stops, presses his lips to her forehead, and for a minute, just holds her.

 

She curves her arms alongside his, her palms resting against the backs of his shoulders, and lets her head fall to his chest for minute. It's a strange minute -- but not an unpleasant one.

 

Then he moves, takes her chin in his hand and tilts her head back.

 

~*~

 

The look on her face is very soft, he thinks. Very pleasing and gentle. She has, clearly, some sense that he is winding his through something of which she is unaware, and as at Vesari, she is willing to follow his direction.

 

That will be best for both of them, he thinks.

 

He moves his hand to her cheek, then to her head, and runs his fingers through her hair. The stands are not as fine as he might have guessed, but they are smooth as satin, and pleasing to touch.

 

His accommodation with himself has let his arousal begin to come back, as well.

 

He thinks it is time to begin touching the rest of her.

 

He cups her cheek again. “I would like to see you,” he says.

 

She takes a little breath, and her eyelids flicker a little before she says “ _ yes.”  _

 

She stands back, and moves her arms, bending them behind her back, her head dropping as if in a bow as she bends her spine to let herself reach the zipper-catch -- he puts his hands on her shoulders. 

 

“I would like to do it,” he says.

 

She looks up at him, eyebrows raised as if in surprise. “Alright,” she says. And, dropping her arms to her sides, she turns for him, and bows her head, so he can see the long line of her spine, an elegant cord suspended from the base of her skull to the place midway down her back where her dress intervenes between them.

 

He wishes almost idly that she had long hair, like Ferasi’s and his few human lovers, so he could gather it in his hands and push it gently over her shoulder, like pushing aside a curtain.

 

Instead, he runs a knuckle slowly down the line of her spine. 

 

She shivers delightfully.

 

He feels no need to rush.

 

Stepping closer, he slides his hands down her upper arms, from shoulder to elbow, compressing her against herself, and then keeps sliding his hands along her forearms to her wrists, folding her arms around her middle and pulling her close. He has his face pressed lightly to the side of her head, his nose pushed into her hair, which smells of something clean, almost like Copero’s ocean air, beneath the spice of her perfume.

 

She lets him pull her flush against his chest, wordless, her breathing quiet, and after a moment only turns her head a little, as if she might see his face, and wiggles a hand free of his grasp to lay it gently on his elbow. A soft touch, warm, a little tender, not at all demanding -- exactly as she had touched his hand on the train which is, he thinks, the action that has set his subconscious spinning. That, and perhaps also the easy joy, the uncomplicated pleasure, she seems to get from his company. Both things together, probably, have set him off: the contrast and the interplay between them, the scope of sentiment they encompass, all focused on him.

 

At least, he thinks, turning his head to kiss her temple, he has an explanation for himself.

 

She curls her fingers in the fabric of his sleeve when he kisses her, and takes a breath that might be a prelude to speaking. He would like to head it off. He nudges her face with his, kisses her cheek, her jaw, drops his lips to her shoulder, moves his hands to her hips, steps back a little, slides his hands up her sides, across her back, to her shoulders, to her neck, and then again down the middle of her back -- she shivers very gratifyingly at that.

 

He pauses for another minute, hands flat on her naked shoulder-blades, rubbing her skin -- which is indeed very pleasantly soft -- with his thumbs. He keeps on like that, making slow, wide circles at the points of her shoulder blades, until she starts to turn her head as if to speak. Then, almost to cut her off again, he takes the edge of her dress in one hand and the pull of the zipper in the other, and with perfect, drawn-out patience, begins easing it smoothly open.

 

Her breathing hitches and catches in little fevered starts and he almost wants to pull the zip back up and start again, to replay the sounds of her response several times over -- but certain things can only happen once, in their natural moment.

 

~*~

 

When he draws the zipper down to the base of her spine, there's a moment like the space between breaths -- and then he presses his fingertips to her back, near the middle, and splays them, and then drives his touch slowly around her waist, his fingertips drawing trails that radiate from the vertical marker of her spine like lines of latitude.

 

She is breathing so shallowly she can barely hear herself.

 

His palms come to rest against her skin as his fingers skim around her waist, and he slides his touch down, until his hands meet each other low on her belly. He drops his face to the back of her neck, and he breathes there.

 

Between her legs, her nerves are buzzing.

 

“This isn't looking,” she murmurs, putting her hands on top of his, the fabric of the dress between them.

 

“No,” he says, turning his head and kissing the place where her shoulder meets her neck. He raises his head, and stands straight against her and draws his hands up, palms flat on her skin, until he is holding her ribs, just below the swell of her breasts. “This is not looking.”

 

She can feel his cock -- she assumes it's a cock -- pressing against her ass, through his clothes and hers. 

 

After a second, she reaches to her shoulders, as if to pull the slim straps of her dress off to either side.

 

“Would you still like to look?” She asks, hands poised in the air by her shoulders. 

 

He slips his hands up around her breasts, and squeezes them briefly, making her cunt warm acutely with a pleasant, tremulous feeling, and then kisses her neck again, strangely deep, before stepping back from her, sliding his hands out from inside her dress.

 

“Turn around,” he says.

 

She does, folding one hand to the center of her chest, and using the other the help swirl the fabric of her dress, half-formless without the zipper holding it to the structure of her body, around with her.

 

The look on his face is… Very, very serious, she thinks.

 

With slow deliberation, and without speaking, he reaches forward and takes her hand from her chest, as if he were going to lead her somewhere. To a dance floor, perhaps. Just as slowly, deliberatively, silently, he reaches with his other hand, and pushes one strap off her shoulder.

 

The dress does not fall quite far enough to expose her breast completely.

 

He pushes the other strap. The dress falls, and then catches at her bent elbow: leaves her partly naked, partly covered, the sheath of fabric clinging, pooling, half-tangled around her legs. His attention seems to wander over her chest, and she wants in equal measure to cover herself and to make him to touch her.

 

He takes a half-step back, carefully, and drops her hand. She brings it, unselfconsciously, to her middle, holding up the dress between her breasts. It seems almost more like a sheet, and this point.

 

His arms are hanging loosely at his sides. The strange, serious look is still on his face: focused and intent. He raises his chin slightly; even with his eerie, pupilless eyes, she knows he is looking at her face. Her heart is beating very fast and her chest is tight with nerves, almost as if she has never done this before.

 

“Let it down,” he says.

 

Slow and careful, she pushes the dress down her front, shimmies her arms so the straps fall as she does, and lets the whole thing collapse, whispering, into a pool around her feet the color of thick, half-drying blood.

 

And in spite of the strange weight in the moment, she almost laughs when his chin drops and his head tilts: it's obvious from that, too, where he's looking.

 

~*~

 

Her torso and arms are longer, relative to her height, than the average human’s, he thinks, and she has narrow hips for a woman. If her legs were longer, the planes of her body more angular, her frame more narrow, especially in the chest, she might look in a way almost Chiss. 

 

But he doesn't have any complaints, particularly, about how she does look. She is still wearing underthings, but there is very little to them, hardly more than a whisper of sheer fabric hugging her hips and the tender flesh between her legs. They are as suggestive as they concealing, and will come off soon enough in any case. And when he looks at her face, which she is trying to keep calm and neutral but which is just this side of giddy, he doesn't have any complaints about that, either.

 

He holds out a hand, almost mock-gallant.

 

“Come here.”

 

At that, she lets her face change: smiles and throws back her head and laughs, low and throaty, and takes his hand, and steps forward, out of the tangle of her dress and out of her shoes, too.

 

He pulls her against his chest as she moves, wrapping an arm around her waist and drawing her close, and raising their clasped hands together. She leans into him and wraps her free hand up around his shoulder, still laughing, and he lifts her and spins as if they were dancing a Calenata. It's an impulse action, but it satisfies his desire to hear more of her low, melodic laugh. She clings to him and her head goes back and she laughs with a sudden wild abandon that is as much surprise as it is happiness. 

 

That is fine with him, too.

 

He spins her once, twice, three times around, and as he slows and sets her gently on her feet she straightens her head and she looks at him -- her face glowing with hungry joy -- exactly the way he wishes to be looked at.

 

He leaves his arm around her, drops her upraised hand. She puts her hand on his chest, as if following direction. She is leaning into him, and smiling up at him as if he were glowing like Candlewicks. He puts his hand on her face, gently, as if he could hold her happiness in the palm of his hand -- and kisses her.

 

~*~

 

Arihnda doesn't think she's ever been kissed so much in a single day before. She doesn't think she ever wants to stop being kissed, either.

 

~*~

 

He kisses her mouth, slowly, for a good long while, and then he kisses her face: forehead, cheekbones, chin, nose, small direct kisses that make her giggle -- an unexpected sound from her, and slightly higher-pitched than her laughter, but pleasantly breathy.

 

And the little stutters of breath that whisper across his skin, especially against his neck and ear, make his cock, which is almost fully erect, twitch demandingly.

 

So it is time, he supposes, to get on to that.

 

He tilts his head back, looking at her appraisingly, and strokes her cheek with his knuckles.

 

“What do you think?” he asks lightly. “Shall we press on?”

 

~*~

 

His phrasing is as ridiculous as in the first note he'd sent her and it makes her dissolve yet again into laughter, which she tries to control at first, but which bubbles up irrepressibly as she keeps searching his sober face for any sign of intentional irony. Finally, she collapses forward onto his chest, gasping with amusement, and he stands very stiffly for a second, before folding his arm around her shoulder, his hand on the back of her head, and resting his chin on her hair.

 

“I take it this is not a ‘no,’” he says, with his dry humor.

 

She laughs again, and straightens up. The mild expression on his face is mostly entertained, she thinks, in the wry way she so appreciates.

 

“It's not a no,” she allows. She's still leaning against him, one arm on his shoulder, one hand on his chest; he still has his arms around her. For a moment they only look at each other, and Arihnda thinks it would be very fine if he were to kiss her again.

 

He does. 

 

But only briefly, and then he untangles his arms from around her and pushes her gently back a step and begins to undo his tunic.

 

“A necessary next step, I think,” he says, smiling ironically -- but not unkindly, Arihnda, decides, and after a long second of watching him fiddle with buttons, she decides to sit on the edge of her bed.

 

~*~

 

There's a sort of matter-of-factness to the way she sits on the edge of the bed, which contrasts oddly with the suspended, eager way she watches his fingers work on his tunic.

 

Thrawn thinks he will classify it as  _ endearing. _

 

And he takes a little longer than is really necessary to undo his tunic. It gives him a chance to keep watching the minute shiftings of her expression.

 

~*~

 

There's a touch of theatrical flourish to the way Thrawn tosses his tunic aside when he’s done unbuttoning it which ought to make Arihnda laugh, but the truth is she's so engrossed by the sight of his undershirt clinging  _ perfectly  _ to his very fit upper body that all she can do is stare a little, and lick her lips like a hungry dog.

 

Thrawn’s lips curl into a thin smile, and he arches one brow fantastically, and when he speaks, his voice is rich with amusement. 

 

“I take it you like what you see,” he says.

 

And that  _ does  _ make her laugh.

 

~*~

 

He still, even in this context, likes her laugh: likes the way it seems to issue forth from the place where her neck meets her chest. He likes the way it makes the middle of her body move, like a preview of the way he might make her tremble, not too far hence. He likes especially the way her laughter makes her seem engaged with the proceedings, and involved with him.

 

“What shall I remove next, do you think?” he asks, overly serious, keeping the exaggerated lift in his brow.

 

Arihnda, one leg crossed over the other, leaning back casually, propped on both hands, grins. “Shirt,” she says, raising her eyebrows. 

 

He plucks at the front of his undershirt. “This shirt?” he asks mildly.

 

She laughs again. “Definitely that shirt.”

 

~*~

 

After his shirt go his shoes, and then his socks. She's surprised to find herself thinking that he has nice-looking feet. She supposes this is just a feature of the fact that, so far, he seems to look nice all over.

 

After his socks, his jodhpurs go.

 

He's made her laugh at every step, and he does here, as well.

 

But when he's down to only his boxers, she finds her laughter dries up. She can see there's something hard, pressing the fabric of his boxers out just like a human man’s erect cock would do. And when she'd felt it press against her through several layers of clothes, it had felt like a human man’s cock. But still, it could be different. And it could, she supposes, be different in ways that might make this difficult, or impossible.

 

Or, even worse than either of those options, unpleasant.

 

Because she intends to go ahead. Even if she doesn't quite enjoy herself from here on out, she intends to go ahead with it. Her eyes are lingering on the bulge in his boxers. But he's making no move to remove them. He seems to be waiting. She looks up at him.

 

He looks quite serious: somber and sober and attuned to the change in her mood.

 

“You are worried,” he says. It is in no way a question.

 

“No --” she says quickly, sitting up and putting one hand forward as if to mollify him -- “no, I’m --”

 

“It is understandable,” he says mildly. “But, I do not think you need be concerned. Our species are quite compatible, and none of my prior human partners have complained.”

 

Arihnda opens and closes her mouth a couple of times, and then says: “I didn’t know you’d done this before.”

 

His lips twitch and he snorts, suppressing a laugh that might be a bit unkind. “I would think you would be pleased to hear it,” he says dryly, “as it will save you having to help me learn the basics.”

 

She forces a laugh, weak and mostly air, and says: “As long as I don’t have to help you un-learn anything.”

 

He snorts again. His mouth is still curled almost nastily. “I do not expect you will need to,” he says with heavy irony. Then, expression softening a little, one eyebrow arching with what is probably, hopefully, good humor, he says: “And I think you will like what I have to offer.” 

 

Her gaze flickers from his face back downward, and he slips his thumbs into the waistband of his boxers, and stops. 

 

“Would you like to look?” he asks, tone very mild.

 

She swallows, mouth dry, and licks her lips. Takes a breath. Licks her lips again. Then, looking back up at his face, which has a strangely polite expression, she nods.

 

~*~

 

Slipping his boxers off is the work of a moment. When he stands again, he finds she is not looking at his face.

 

And he finds the expression on her face quite gratifying indeed.

 

~*~

 

The first and primary thing Arihnda feels is relief. It does, indeed, look compatible with her body. Decidedly not human, but… Definitely, she thinks, definitely compatible. Provided it doesn’t grow barbs or exude anything that burns, or do anything else weird and horrible, it might be alright, she thinks.

 

She’s surprised that it’s… pink. Pinkish-purple, mostly, relatively light near the tip, fading to a dark purple that’s almost blue at the base, and it looks a bit… slick, a bit shiny, which makes her wonder if it’s… if it sort of hides up inside him most of the time? If it’s kind of exuded itself from what looks like a... ring of muscle around it’s base? It seems a logical presumption, based on the fact that she can't see any testicles, and she supposes they must be  _ somewhere.  _ Inside makes as much sense as anywhere, so why shouldn't his cock retreat there too when he's not using it? 

 

She supposes she can always ask. 

 

Whether it lives inside him or not is a little less interesting than all the… the extra features, she decides to call them… it seems to come with. It juts out of his body in the place a human man’s cock would, but it seems to emerge from within a slightly raised oval ridge of muscular-looking tissue. The ring of muscle at its base is a little longer top to bottom than his cock is wide around, and above his cock there are three strange-looking nodules that protrude, arranged in a little row of decreasing size from the base of his cock to the archway of the muscular opening. They are certainly strange-looking, but all in all, they aren’t the strangest of the extra features.

 

His cock itself is not intimidatingly large at all, it looks like a very reasonable size, really, it’s just very… very  _ sturdy _ -looking overall, almost muscular in its own right, without as much bounce, for lack of a better word, as she’s used to seeing in men. 

 

The part of him that looks most normal is his thick base. Although, ‘most normal’ is not really the same as ‘normal.’ The base of his shaft is a kind of slightly bulging square with strong-looking cordons, almost like tendons, that seem to lead the fatter bulging, squarish bit inward to a smoother, slightly slimmer shaft, that looks a bit flat on top by comparison to the base and that meets the fat corona of his cock’s head -- which is quite different than the head of a human cock. 

 

The head of is cock is like the bulbous root of a flowering plant. The corona bulges, almost familiar, above the shaft, but instead of being mostly dome-like, it bulges  _ up,  _ and tapers into a curved point. The top, like his shaft, looks slightly flat, but the underside seems to have three lobes, an impression created by a sort of… sort of… ridge-thing. A vertical ridge, offset from the rest of the bulging head by two deep grooves. And it’s all much larger, relative to his shaft, than the head of a human cock would normally be. It’s a very obvious, fairly strange, slightly intimidating extra feature.

 

But by far the strangest extra feature lies on the underside of his cock, which has… has a row of almost gill-like horizontal ridges.

 

There are four of them, nested into one another, the first and smallest protruding just below the base of his head, the widest of them stretched across the mid-point of his shaft.

 

Overall his cock looks  _ very  _ hard, and it stands  _ very _ straight out, with a dramatic curve that makes his pointed head arc dramatically towards his belly. 

 

She wonders if he’s as hard as he looks, and if all the extra features are very hard, too. She supposes they can’t be  _ too  _ stiff, or he probably would have gotten complaints, especially about the pointed head and the strange ridges. She thinks they’d hurt if they were rock-hard, shaped the way they are, and she feels reasonably confident someone would have let him know if  _ that  _ were the case. But if they’re not  _ too  _ hard -- 

 

She’s reaching forward with one hand, leaning her upper body forward too, intent on her goal, before she stops herself, and, trying to be a little polite, looks up at his face. He’s -- watching, just watching. She can’t read the expression, which is at least better than his looking unhappy.

 

Her hand is hovering in mid-air.

 

“Can I -- do you mind if I touch it?”

 

His mouth twitches, and then curves thinly with amusement, and he snorts softly -- slightly less mean-spirited than before, she thinks. “Please, feel free,” he says.

 

She puts her hand on the base of his cock, directly on the flat top of the square bulge, resting her palm on it and letting her hand curve around him as if he were a human. She supposes if he looks similar, similar things must feel good -- or at least not bad. She at least hopes her touch doesn't feel unpleasant.

 

His cock certainly doesn't feel unpleasant to her.

 

He  _ does  _ feel sturdy: a warm, solid mass that feels a little firmer than a human cock. He does feel, really, a little bit muscular. Strange, that. And his skin is different, too: a little rubbery-feeling. And he is, yes, wet: slick, as if his whole cock were covered in some sort of viscous pre-cum. Although she’s pretty sure that’s not what it is. It’s -- it’s whatever his cock lives in, inside him, which, on closer examination, she thinks must indeed be how he works.

 

She decides she’s going to ignore the extra features, at least for now. She’ll get to them soon enough. But for now, she’ll stick with what feels sort of familiar: the shaft of him, from base to the bulge of his head, on the topside. She gives him a gentle squeeze, and rubs her hand against him, mostly sicking near the base. He has a little less give to him than a human cock, but he doesn't feel bad. She gives another soft squeeze, a gentle rub up and down. She’s not feeling tentative, but wants to be sure she’s doing things right before she gets too energetic.

 

She looks up. The smile has faded from his face somewhat, and the slightly soft, strangely intent look has come back into his features. Her hand falters for a moment, and then she rubs him again. 

 

“Does that feel good?” she asks, holding his gaze and moving her hand.

 

There’s a little lag in his answering.

 

He reaches out and tucks her hair behind her ear, and touches her cheek. And then, voice quite gentle, he says: “Yes.”

 

~*~

 

Her hand does feel good against him: soft and careful, just as he had expected. Or rather, as he had imagined. And he is pleased that she wants, obviously, to please him. He can teach her how to do that. He strokes the side of her face. 

 

“Squeeze a little harder,” he says.

 

~*~

 

His voice is almost a whisper: as gentle as the touch of his hand on her cheek. And the look on his face is so soft, and so serious, that it almost worries her. She almost wants to stop, and ask if he is alright, and perhaps hold him until he remembers how to smile again -- this all feels much easier when they are smiling.

 

Instead, she follows directions. She scoots a little closer, so she is just perched on the edge of the bed, and tightens her hand firmly against the base of him and then, holding his gaze, loosens her grip just a little to slide her hand almost up to the head of his cock, and smoothly back down again to the base, which she squeezes again.

 

“Like this?” she asks. It comes out a little sultry, which is intentional.

 

It does not have the intended effect. 

 

His face stays just as serious, and he runs his fingers through her hair again. 

 

“A little harder,” he says.

 

She looks down at his cock mostly to save herself from looking at his too-serious expression any longer, but puts her focus on her hand, on the feel of him and the look of what she’s doing, and tries a firmer stroke.

 

His cock bends a little under the pressure and he takes an audible breath. She looks up quickly. “Are you alright?”

 

Still the serious expression, still the gentle fingers in her hair. “Yes,” he says, taking another breath, “yes, I am alright. Do it again.”

 

She hesitates a second, and then does: watching her own hand pull firmly along the length of him, and push smoothly back down to the base. She’s avoiding the ridges underneath,  not letting her fingers go all the way around him, but he doesn’t seem to mind, because he’s breathing in the same way and he runs his fingers through her hair and says “ _ just like that,”  _ so she keeps on, building up a steady rhythm, which she increases a little each time he strokes her hair and repeats “ _ like that.”  _

 

And as she does, she bumps her hand against the nodules at the base on him, which are terribly hard, almost bony, and from between which more of the slick liquid that covers him seems to emerge, and the swell of his head, which turns out to be markedly warmer than the shaft, but softer too: it has a kind of elastic quality and gives slightly as she bumps her hand against it, almost pushing on it. The first time she does this, by accident, he takes a sharp breath and she stops, looking up at him, at his still terribly serious face, and he says “ _ that is good _ ” with a slight nod -- so she does it with a little more vigor and intentionality after that, which makes him breathe the word “ _ yes _ ” in a very gratifying way.

 

She goes on for a couple of minutes, checking on his face every few strokes and finding it in the same somber state each time, until she becomes slightly bored -- and her curiosity starts to get the better of her.

 

She stops -- leaves her hand wrapped over the base of him -- and looks up at his face. “Do you mind if I stop for a minute? I’d like to -- I don’t mean to be rude but I’d like to, ah, inspect the rest of it, if you don’t mind.”

 

He raises his eyebrows.

 

“I’m -- curious,” she adds, as explanation.

 

“Naturally,” he says, with a little dry humor returning to his demeanor. His hand is still in her hair, and he leaves it there, but his mouth curls into a very faint smile, and to Arihnda seeing the curve of his lips is like breathing after being underwater. “Please, help yourself,” he adds wryly, and Arihnda laughs almost as much from relief as amusement.

 

Still laughing, finally smiling again, she returns her attention to his cock. She squeezes it again, almost out of fondness, before lifting her hand, and pressing a finger to the strange, hard nodules on his pelvis.

 

They have a very little bit of give, but not much. They probably aren’t bone, but they are very hard -- she runs her fingers over them, and presses on them with a fingertip again. It gets no discernible reaction from him. She looks up.

 

He doesn’t look curious about her curiosity -- more patient with it.

 

“Can I ask --”

 

“They are cartilage,” he says.

 

“What are they for?”

 

He raises his eyebrows, then lets his face become neutral again. “Females of my species are anatomically similar to human women. These encourage… enthusiasm.”

 

Arihnda opens her mouth, then closes it again, then looks back at his cock and presses a finger to the largest bump. His cock would have to be seated very deep inside her for her to feel these, she thinks. That would certainly require… some sort of enthusiasm. Either women of his species are a little more different than he’s letting on, or the way his species fucks is a little less pump-and-dump than she’s accustomed to.

 

She’ll find out soon enough about that, she supposes.

 

She takes a determined sort of breath, and runs her finger along the shaft of him to the head of his cock. She leaves her finger curved against the swell of it, deciding how to proceed.

 

What she wants to do is take it in her fingers and pinch, just to see how much give it really has, but she’s pretty confident that won’t be appreciated.

 

Instead, carefully, she presses her thumb to the base of the ridge on the underside. His hand tightens against her head and he takes a slow breath when she starts to press into him, and she glances up at his face. The serious look is coming back. So far, it seems to be associated with pleasure, and while she would prefer a smile, she’ll work with what she has. She looks back down at his cock and slowly, carefully, pushes her thumb along the length of the ridge until she reaches the tip. The ridge feels almost like the cartilage of an ear. She can hear slow, shallow breathing from him. She looks up again. The serious look is back on his face, and his fingers move gently in her hair. 

 

“Very good,” he breathes.

 

Deliberately, she draws her thumb back down the ridge, watching his face the whole time. His lips are slightly parted; his breathing seems shallow. She pushes her thumb back up to the tip. He licks his lips, takes a slow breath.

 

Arihnda smiles rather wickedly. “You like this,” she says, drawing her thumb down again.

 

“Yes,” he says.

 

Still smiling, she pushes her thumb slowly back to the tip and then, in a pit of perverse pique and partly to break the tension of the moment, she flicks her thumb quickly against it.

 

His whole body seems to twitch: his head snaps up so he is looking at the wall and his hand clutches sharply in her hair and he takes a very sharp breath. Arihnda gives a weird little snicker. Even from this angle, she can tell he looks annoyed. He takes another breath, more controlled, and looks down at her. He is very definitely annoyed. 

 

“Did that hurt?” she asks. The question is rather pro forma: she is quite confident that reaction was pleasure, and that his annoyance is mostly from surprise. It is not so different from the way he had become a bit rude when she pointed out that  _ Beelthrak _ would be a little new to both of them, which she hadn’t thought about much when it happened, but which comes back to her now as indicative of a pattern. 

 

He certainly likes to think he is always the one in control.

 

“No,” he says curtly, “it did not hurt. But, I would prefer you do not do it again.”

 

She smiles, still wickedly. “Alright,” she says. Then she glances down, running her thumb lightly up and down the ridge again, and then back up at him. “Do you mind if I --?” She makes an inquiring face, opening her mouth suggestively and pressing her tongue against her lower lip.

 

He raises his eyebrows briefly. “No, not at all,” he says mildly. And then he adds, one brow arching: “So long as you do not use your teeth.”

 

She laughs, throwing her head back a little, and then, smiling sharply, murmurs: “I promise to be careful.” Then she drops her gaze.

 

She hesitates. Takes a breath. Licks her lips. Puts one hand on the base of him.

 

And then she drops her head, and takes the whole head of his cock in her mouth.

 

His fingers tighten again in her hair when she does, and she can hear him take a slow breath. For a moment, she only holds him in her mouth, feeling the strange texture of him, the warmth of him, tasting him -- he tastes both familiar and strange, and his head mostly fills her mouth, the tapered tip tickling her soft palate, the swell of the bulb fat and fleshy feeling, just firm enough to have a shape, but soft enough to compress a little or stretch a little when she presses or sucks, except for the one slightly hard ridge down the back.

 

She moves her tongue against the ridge, probing the grooves on either side of it, and he moans.

 

And Arihnda finds that rather thrilling.

 

She tightens her hand on the base of his cock and pushes her tongue along the ridge of the head with a little more intentionality, and is very pleased to hear him moan again.

 

Pleased, but not so pleased she wants to devote all the rest of her attention here.

 

Feeling a little self-satisfied, she pulls her mouth away, rubbing the ridge with her tongue and sucking slowly on his head while she does.

 

Then she looks closer at the ridges on the underside of his shaft. Up close, they look like they might have some give to them. Carefully, she runs her thumb down the center of them, and is excited to see him shiver in response. One of his legs twitches, and his fingers flex in her hair, and he makes a little noise. She glances up at his face, sees the serious look, and returns, a little eagerly, to the ridges.

 

They don’t feel bad at all. They fold slightly under the pressure of her touch, but not much. They have more give than the three hard bumps on his pelvis, but not as much elasticity as the head of his cock. She runs her thumb down them again, more firmly, and he groans a little.

 

She looks up again. 

 

“Good?” she asks.

 

He takes a slow breath, combs his fingers through her hair. “Yes, good.”

 

Feeling a little bold, and a little curious, she dips her head back to his cock, and probes with the tip of her tongue up under the smallest ridge, just beneath the bulb of his head.

 

He makes a low noise again.

 

She presses her tongue into the space there more fully; it tastes the same as the rest of his cock, just a little stronger. Deliberately, she runs the point of her tongue from one side of the ridge to the other. He groans, rather loudly.

 

She glances up and sees his eyes are half-closed.

 

She wants to hear him groan again, wants to see if she can make him close his eyes, or lose himself a little.

 

She slips her mouth around the head of him again, closing her lips around the swell where the head of his cock meets the shaft, and moves her hand and sucks at the same time. It earns another groan, and she doubles her efforts: runs her thumb along the ridges while she massages down the length of his cock, and runs her tongue up and down along the back of his head while she works her lips around the swell of it. All of that earns a groan, too, and a tightening of his fingers in her hair.

 

And then, eyes closed, hand sliding along the the shaft of his cock, she brings her head back slowly, sucking softly as she pulls her lips over his head, back to the tip. Then she slides her mouth down over him again, almost but not quite over the swell of him, and then back again, teasing the sensitive ridge with her tongue. He combs his fingers through her hair, and sighs her name, and she hums a little in response, which makes his hand tighten and makes him groan. It’s all very gratifying. 

 

She thinks it would be very, very gratifying to make him cum. She’s never had much luck with that. But he seems to be responding very, very well. And she has an idea about how to make it happen.

 

When she pulls back a third time, she stays, sucking gently on the tapered tip of his cock -- and then she flicks her tongue against it.

 

His hole body jolts, he gives a stifled cry, and he pulls back sharply on her hair.

 

She lets him pull her head back, and she looks up, her mouth hanging open, and sees his chest is rising and falling rapidly, and his face looks strained. Beneath her hand, his cock feels as hard as transparisteel.

 

“Good?” she gasps out.

 

~*~

 

He almost yanks on her hair again when she says that: almost yanks her backwards onto the bed, which he could do without much effort. Could drag her backwards by her hair, pin her down with a hand on her throat, and plow his hard cock into the warm, soft center of her and have complete and total control of the situation once again. He wonders if she wouldn’t enjoy that a little. He suspects she would.

 

It is clear she is less fragile, and much sharper, than his fantasy of her.

 

But likely she would not enjoy it without a little warning, and in any case it is not the scenario he intended to create. Perhaps another time, he thinks, looking down at her and bringing himself back under control.

 

“Yes,” he says crisply, pulling his hand out of her hair, flexing his fingers slightly, observing her. “That was good.”

 

Her eyes are bright, her face and chest flushed, her breathing a little heavy. “Good,” she says. She sounds quite satisfied, like she’s been proven right about something. Her hand is still on his cock and she starts to move it again.  

 

He reaches down and lifts it away. 

 

“I am not ready to be finished quite yet, thank you,” he says coolly.

 

She raises her eyebrows. “What do you want, then?” she says.

 

His gaze flickers past her, roaming the very small expanse of her bed for a moment. It would almost be better to work on the floor, he thinks. Easier.

 

But he finds that most people feel safest in their beds. The sharp edges he is just starting to uncover in her notwithstanding, he thinks that is true of her, and he thinks that drawing out the softer parts of her will be better served by that than by taking her on the floor like an animal.

 

“Lay back for me,” he says, gentling his tone. “It is your turn, now.”

 

“Is it?” she says, scooting back on the bed.

 

“Indeed,” he says, settling beside her and hooking a thumb into her underthings. “I should like to help you out of these.”

 

~*~

 

His choice of words makes her snort, and then laugh in spite of herself. And her laughter makes him smile, a small, satisfied expression, which makes the last of her annoyance dissipate and makes her laugh again, briefly, and touch his face. 

 

“I can do it without help,” she says, half-laughing.

 

“Indulge me,” he says.

 

She laughs again. “Of course,” she says, “I’m sure it will be my pleasure.”

 

“That is my intention,” he says as he sits up and begins tugging her underthings down. His tone is so deadpan she doesn’t know if it’s meant to be funny.

 

~*~

 

It would almost be easier to rip her sheer undergarment than shimmy it down her legs, but she moves helpfully and smiles at him in a pleasant way while he guides the wisp of fabric along her skin.

 

He holds it up for her demonstratively when it's removed, which brings her laughter back, as intended, and then tosses it aside in an equally exaggerated manner. That, too has the intended effect: she laughs loudly, her chest arcing up and her head pressing back into the mattress in a relaxed and happy parody of orgasm, and when he leans over her and slides his arms around her and kisses her, she gives herself over to him easily and gently.

 

He goes on kissing her for some time, letting one hand wander freely as he does. He massages one of her breasts, making her moan, and then rubs her side, which makes her sigh, and then runs his palm over the curve of her ass, squeezing it once, which also makes her moan though less prettily than when he'd touched her breast, and then he runs his hand up and down the length of her thigh. The longer he goes on kissing her, and touching her, the more she moves her body against his, like a little test run of what they both intend. 

 

When he finally pulls back from kissing her, he finds her looking befuddled again: sweetly and happily confused, gently and pleasantly pliant. She looks once again like his fantasy of her, like the soft and tender thing he wants.

 

“Arihnda,” he says gently, to see how she will respond. 

 

She responds with a sighing moan, and a smile, and a gentle touch against his face.

 

She is exactly the version of herself he wants.

 

“Arihnda,” he says again, kissing her cheek. She makes the same moaning sound, and he repeats her name, and kisses her neck. Then, saying her name again, he kisses her chest. And again, and again, trailing kisses down her body until her sighing moans have turned to hungry whining, and his lips are low on her belly just above a tangle of soft-looking dark hair.

 

This, too, he had found bizarre in humans at first, but he has learned to tolerate it. He presses his face to the juncture of her legs and inhales: not to smell her, he could do without that although he does not object to the mix of odors, but to make her respond. It is the sort of gesture of intimacy that will, he thinks, have a good effect on her.

 

It does.

 

She gives a little cry, slight surprise but more sentimentality, and when he looks up he sees a tender frown, bright eyes, parted lips --

 

“Arihnda,” he says. 

 

She answers perfectly: a little whimpering sound in the back of her throat. 

 

He strokes one of her knees lightly. “Arihnda,” he says again, holding her gaze. 

 

This time she answers with a little moan. 

 

“Ask me what I want,” he murmurs.

 

Another whimper. She is shifting her hips just a little, in a way that she is probably unaware of.

 

“Ask me what I want, Arihnda,” he says.

 

“Wh - mm - what do you want?”

 

He drops his head and kisses her hip, then looks up again. “I want to look at you.”

 

She makes a delightful, guttural noise, and pulls her knees up and apart. He pushes himself just enough out of the way to be helpful when she does, and then he settles between her legs, planting a quick kiss on her soft inner thigh as he does.

 

The kiss is a little bit for himself, a passing impulse, but she responds nicely, with another charming sound, and a light touch on his hair. He looks up and sees her looking at him with tender and slightly wondering hunger.

 

Exactly the version of her he wants.

 

He puts his hand on her pelvis, dips his thumb into the already-wet center of her. It makes her shiver. Smiling lazily, he moves his thumb upward, to the general area where human women have the sensitive little nub that is the easiest way to make them cum. It is smaller than the similar organ in Chiss women, and slightly more particular, but when it's struck right it’s much more acutely sensitive -- and Thrawn enjoys exploiting that sensitivity very much. He presses his thumb against her and makes a lazy circle. Her eyes go wide and she shudders.

 

He smiles wider.

 

“Arihnda,” he says. His voice is as lazy as the motion of his thumb. She moves her hips, unconsciously. “Does this feel good to you?”

 

She groans, nods.

 

“Do you like being touched here?”

 

Another groan, and then -- “Yes,” the word almost all breath.

 

He keeps circling his thumb. The delicate folds of flesh nestled between her legs are slick, soft, and swollen from arousal, and a strong animal scent rises out of her. 

 

“Do you like when men touch you here?”

 

Another groaning, breathy  _ “yes.” _

 

“Do you like that I am touching you here?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Do you like when use their mouths here?”

 

Her eyes widen. “I -- uh --”

 

He raises his eyebrows, feeling faintly surprised. He had expected more enthusiasm. He presses harder with his thumb, and her head goes back.

 

“Will you let me use my mouth here?” It is, given her reaction to his prior question, suddenly more a real inquiry than a tease.

 

She groans, but doesn't say one way or the other.

 

He slows the motion of his thumb considerably. “Arihnda?”

 

Another moan.

 

“Arihnda.”

 

“Yes -- yes, yes,” she says, sounding almost harried.

 

~*~

 

There's a little pause between her saying yes and him putting his mouth on her, but when he does, her mind seems to white out.

 

~*~

 

He does not have to work at it very long, licking into the soft, slick folds of her, before she is digging her fingers into his hair and crying out -- wordless sounds that he drives up in volume, pitch, and intensity by burying his face into her as if he were chasing something.

 

~*~

 

Everywhere his tongue touches feels good, and it makes her moan and whimper like an animal. 

 

When his tongue starts to flicker against her clit, she screams.

 

~*~

 

Her screaming is absurd, but very gratifying. He has to focus not to choke on laughter while he works, flickering the point of his tongue again the sensitive little button that makes her crazed. Her soft thighs are trembling around his head, and her hands are clutching at his hair, and he has to wrap his arms around her bucking hips to keep her in place.

 

He had only intended to warm her up a little more, but her responses are so entertaining that he decides on the fly to push her not just near to the edge, but all the way off it.

 

~*~

 

Arihnda’s never cum so quickly in her life. Wet-on-wet, active, probing, precise -- by the time he stops using his tongue, she hardly remembers how to think.

 

~*~

 

When he stops, she whimpers as if in protest, and in response he gives her one last lick that makes her shriek so fantastically that he almost bursts into laughter. He has to press his face to her thigh for a minute and collect himself.

 

But what he wants is a little further northward. 

 

He works his way back to her face with a series of soft kisses along her trembling middle. She is panting, and her eyes are closed, and she is frowning. It is a lovely expression. He balances on his hands above her and watches her for a minute before touching the side of her face.

 

When her bleary gazes focuses on him, she smiles, and there’s a great deal more feeling in her face than at any point before. Her expression radiates an unfiltered gratitude so sweet it almost looks like love.

 

It is exactly the way he needs to be looked at.

 

And it takes him by surprise.

 

~*~

 

Arihnda smiles at him when he touches her cheek -- she can hardly help herself, he's made her feel so good she feels practically weightless from affection -- but her smile only lasts a second.

 

Her smile only lasts a second because her smile seems to chase his away. What replaces it --

 

She puts a hand on his face from instinct.

 

~*~

 

Her smile melts into a frown, deep and deeply concerned.

 

When she says _ “What’s wrong?”  _ her voice is filled with worry.

 

He knows it is because of the thing he has allowed to show on his own face.

 

He excuses himself by admitting that the sentiment that had flashed through him when she smiled -- a visceral thing, almost painful -- had come over him more or less without warning.

 

~*~

 

He shakes his head, and the look on his face fades to something neutral.

 

“It is nothing,” he says. Then he leans in, and kisses her forehead quickly.

 

“Thrawn --”

 

“It is nothing,” he says again, firmly, settling himself on the mattress beside her, and wrapping an arm around her middle.

 

His cock is still hard, and it presses into her, but he doesn't seem to be paying it any mind. He props his head up on one hand, leans over, kisses her temple. It's nice, but there's something strangely distant in it.

 

She is still frowning at him.

 

“You won't tell me what's wrong?” she says.

 

He raises an eyebrow. “Nothing is wrong.”

 

It might be the most obvious lie she's ever heard in her life -- but the fact that it's so blatant makes it almost impossible to respond to. She might be naked with him in her bed, with every intention of having him fuck her, but they aren't close enough as people for her to complain about him keeping secrets. He owes her so little, in fact, that she thinks it would be rude not to drop the issue.

 

So she forces the frown off her face.

 

“Alright,” she says, turning into him and putting a hand on his chest. “I’m guessing you want to move on to other things sooner or later?”

 

He gives a soft snort, and smiles minutely. “I thought you might need a minute or so.”

 

~*~

 

He's grateful to her for moving them along, and very pleased when she laughs at his comment.

 

“I appreciate that,” she says, smiling naturally again. “I don't think I’ll need too long.”

 

“I do not mind, however long it is,” he says, which is true enough. “I trust you are on the usual hormonal suppressants?” He fully expects the answer to be yes, but now seems as opportune a time as any to check.

 

“Yes,” she says. Then she frowns, as if a question has just occurred to her. “And you-- you're --”

 

“Perfectly healthy, as verified by the Imperial Navy,” he says in a slightly soothing tone.

 

“Good,” she says. Her gaze wanders down the length of his body. “I don't mean to make you wait --”

 

“It is fine,” he says, pressing his face into her neck and kissing her. She says  _ mm  _ very nicely. “I do not mind,” he adds, kissing her neck again. She makes another pleasing noise and relaxes against him. 

 

And that is how they pass the next few minutes, until her hand wanders down to his cock again.

 

She gives him a look with a slightly wicked edge, and he feels himself begin to smile in turn.

 

“I’m getting rather curious, you know, about how this feels,” she murmurs.

 

~*~

 

He smiles quite smugly at her, and says: “I would certainly like to know what you think of it,” which she supposes would be more obnoxious if she didn't want his cock inside her quite so badly. But she's more than recovered herself, and her cunt is starting ache and clench in a hungry way. She wants to cum again, around something solid this time.

 

She strokes his cock, and leans forward and kisses his shoulder, and then his neck, and then says, as bold as she has ever been: “You should fuck me.”

 

“Mm,” he says, sounding suddenly non-committal. He tilts her head up with one finger under her chin and, looking quite serious, says: “Are you comfortable on top?”

 

~*~

 

She blinks and lifts her brows in surprise, and the gentle stroking of her hand on his cock falters. 

 

Perhaps she does not like being on top; some people do not. He is fine either way, but given the option --

 

“I can be on top,” she says. 

 

_ Can be _ , so likely it is not her favorite. But he would like to lay back and watch her get used to him rather than do the work, at least this time around, so he will not go out of his way here.  _ Can be  _ will be good enough for him, for now.

 

He rolls on to his back. “Whenever you are ready,” he says.

 

~*~

 

There’s a very faint raise in one of his brows, and he looks smug and expectant and quite relaxed. Arihnda has half a mind to kick him out for that, just out of spite. 

 

But the other half of her mind is taking direction exclusively from her cunt, which gives a warm, tight twitch at the sight of him stretched out beside her in her bed, very naked and very handsome, smiling a little and waiting for her.

 

She shivers a little, and pushes herself upright.

 

~*~

 

On top is clearly not her normal position: she is a little fumbling about climbing on, a little awkward, and he finds his hands fluttering around her as if he might help, or give her some support. She seems, although she flashes what he thinks is supposed to be a reassuring smile -- which he meets with a small smile of his own and a brief squeeze of his hands against her waist -- a little uncomfortable. That, certainly, is not what he wants.

 

The feeling that had ripped through him at the sight of her hazy, post-orgasmic smile -- an unsettling, intense, almost violent variation on the pleasantly warm, if somewhat uncomfortably grateful, appreciation he felt for her hand and her mouth -- is pressing on the edges of his mind, inexorable and constricting. It is a distracting, controlling, demanding feeling, and it precludes the distant, critical attitude he has usually taken with lovers, where he has been almost more audience than actor.

 

If she is too uncomfortable, or unhappy, he will have to switch their positions around after all. And he spends most of the time she is getting herself set up eyeing her closely, trying to assess if she is alright, if she needs anything from him. He leaves his hands resting lightly against her sides, skimming her waist just loosely enough that she can move freely, ready to help if she should need it.

 

~*~

 

She sets herself up straddling him, which is a little uncomfortable, and his hands are a little in the way, but when she checks on his face the look is so intent, and the way he touches her sides so much its match, that she hardly wants to swat his grasp away. She’ll just work around him.

 

She hunches her shoulders and drops her head, which doesn’t really let her see what she’s doing but does let her ignore him and concentrate a little.

 

She fishes between their legs for his cock with one hand, and finds she has to lean quite far forward to feel comfortable accommodating the curve in it. And she still has to try and bend the head up a little, to try and find a comfortable angle to start sliding on.

 

When she does, she brushes the sensitive, tapered head against her labia and his hands seem to spasm at her sides and he takes a sharp, gasping breath. She stops, freezes in the middle of everything, and looks at him. 

 

The expression on his face is like the serious look from before, only increased to a terrible intensity. It's the look he'd had when she'd smiled at him after he'd emerged from between her legs. The expression is too serious, too heavy. She feels her body tense. 

 

“Are you alright?” she asks.

 

He takes another audible breath. She’s not sure if he’s looking at her face or her body. Then he nods. “Yes,” he says breathlessly, “yes, you are doing fine.”

 

And that's a bit snide, she thinks. She stays poised another second, deciding if maybe she should snap back a bit. The hot, tight twitching between her legs decides for her. She shifts her hips, tugs and pushes on his cock, ignoring the catches in his breath, until the tip of him is just inside of her -- which, she realizes, with the stiff ridge of cartilage along the back helping it keep its shape, is a good little guiding feature.

 

Then, more focused than lustful, one hand still holding him in place, she pushes herself slowly down onto him.

 

~*~

 

With her head drooping, her shoulders tense, he can see how hard she’s concentrating. His own breath is coming in shallow, small, gasp-like intervals. 

 

Human women had felt strange to him, at first. Spongier inside than Chiss women, with a slightly different, thinner sort of lubrication. In the beginning he had made himself explore them for curiosity’s sake, and in the very first instance, a little out of politeness as well. Over a few encounters, he’d grown accustomed to it, and then developed a sort of appreciation for it. 

 

Now, it’s not the strangeness that strikes him at all.

 

She only feels like herself: warm, wet, soft and close around him -- she seems made for him, and in a sense she is all his, having had no one like him before. It is appropriate that he should be the only man of his kind to have her, he feels, the idea an inarticulate emotion residing somewhere deep within him, just as it is appropriate that he be the only person in her life who holds a safe path forward for her future. The constricting pressure around his mind is worse, like a kind of madness. He is aware only of a wordless variation on the thought  _ all mine, all mine, all mine, _ which hammers relentlessly at his consciousness from all directions.

 

He focuses on breathing steadily, and holds himself perfectly still for her.

 

~*~

 

The slightly elastic, pliant quality of his head turns out to be very helpful: it gives just enough that it feels almost easy, fairly comfortable, going in, like it’s accommodating her as much as she’s accommodating it. It seems to kind of pop into place, and its nice that it’s more rubbery than rock-hard, she thinks, stopping and squeezing herself around it a little when it’s just inside.

 

He takes a sharp breath when she does, and she glances at his find and finds him focused and utterly intent on her. She gives him a smug little smile, and then turns her focus inward, dropping her head again.

 

She rocks herself up and forward, down and back, just a tiny bit, just trying to get familiar with the feel of his head. It moves with her a little, but not so much she can’t feel it distinctly, a fleshy, bulbous thing that puts a pleasant pressure inside her cunt. She can hear him take more audible breaths when she moves, so she knows for certain that this must feel good to him -- and she guesses that at some point in the main event, thrusting will be at least a little important, because she can’t see any other way to get the kind of squeezing, the stretching and compression, that seems to stimulate the head of his cock, and which seems to be the source of most of his pleasure.

 

She can also feel the first of the horizontal ridges tickling the entrance of her cunt, teasing and hinting at what it will do to the back wall of her when she sides more fully onto him. 

 

She wiggles her hips a little, which makes him groan, and then, carefully, pushes herself a little lower.

 

The upper part of his shaft is less wide around than the swelling bulb of his head, and if not for the ridges, probably wouldn’t feel like much.

 

But she can absolutely feel the ridges.

 

They are stiffer than his head, but less stiff the shaft of his cock, and they fold a little as she pushes down against each of them in turn, and then they push back against her as they come fully inside, and -- and she has to dig her hands into his shoulders for balance -- it feels so good and so strange. She finds herself closing her eyes, and moaning a little.

 

She pauses after the last one, takes a breath, and rocks a little. They move with her, seeming to flare as she pulls forward and compress as she leans back. It feels very good.

 

And it seems to feel good to him, too, as if the motion of the ridges stimulates him as much as it does her. He tightens his hands against her waist and groans and when she looks at his face she sees his eyes are closed and his mouth is set. When he breathes -- a heavy, groaning sound -- his nostrils flare.

 

Slowly, she pushes herself forward, up his shaft until the ring of muscle at the opening of her cunt is pulling against the bulb of his head, and then just as slowly slides herself back down until the last ridge flare into place inside her.

 

When she does all that, his head presses back into the mattress and he moans loudly. The sound sends a thrill of pleasure through her body almost more intense than what she feels from his cock, and she curls her fingers against his skin and, breathing raggedly, slides herself up and down his cock again.

 

He makes another low, wonderful sound, and digs his fingers into her, and she does it again, faster, intends to keep doing it faster -- only he digs his fingers into her painfully, suddenly, and frowns, and, eyes still closed, says: “Stop -- stop --”

 

She pauses halfway up her rise, and holds still while he takes a breath, and another breath --

 

“Not good?” she asks.

 

“No,” he says, taking another breath. Then he opens his eyes. The look on his face alone could hold her still. “No, very good. But I want to feel all of you.”

 

~*~

 

Her eyes go wide and her lips part for a brief second, in what he thinks is excitement. Then, licking her lips, setting her mouth, and closing her eyes, she nods, and sets herself back over him, and begins, bit by bit, to bear down.

 

~*~

 

Just below the last ridge, the base of his cock bulges into its squarish mass before pinching in slightly at the base. While the increase in girth seems to happen gently enough, it is noticeable, and the base of him is much firmer than his head.

 

When she starts to bear down, it feels a little uncomfortable. The base of him stretches her, and her cunt resists; it doesn't hurt, she's just feeling  _ tense _ .

 

It's always been hard for her to relax on top.

 

She tries again, eyes still closed, and when she stops a second time, his hands tighten on her hips, and she hears him say “ _ all the way”  _ in a low, encouraging gasp. There's pressure from his hands like he’s going to push her down onto him.

 

She pushes into his chest with her hands, her arms straight like poles, and braces her hips and thighs against his hands. She keeps her eyes closed. “I know,” she says, “I know, but I need a minute.”

 

The pressure from his hands vanishes almost instantly. “Of course,” he says, “of course.”

 

She shakes her head, tilts her head back, and tries again, and stops again, and then, in frustration, opens her eyes to look at him.

 

He is eyeing her with something that might be concern. “Do you want me to get on top?” he asks, sliding his hands along her sides gently.

 

She thinks about it for a minute, and then nods.

 

~*~

 

Switching places is mostly a matter-of-fact affair, except that when she actually pulls herself all the way off his cock she does it so fast that for a split second his mind flips off, and he blows out a breath that makes her stop where she's sitting, almost crab-style, and ask if he's okay.

 

“Yes,” he says, catching his breath and pushing himself up and over onto his hands and knees above her. “Yes, lay back for me.”

 

~*~

 

The change from straddling him to being on her back is immediate, and lovely. She lets herself sink flat into the mattress and loops her arms around his shoulders and smiles at him as he settles over her and slips a hand under the back of her head. She feels open in exactly the right way with her legs hooked over his hips when he reaches between their legs and lines up the head of his cock with her.

 

He's glanced away from her face while doing that, but he returns his attention before he does anything else. Eyeing her closely, he says “Ready?”

 

She nods, and then lets her eyes drift close while he starts to press into her.

 

There's the weird-but-pleasant feeling of his head, and the delicious tease of the ridges, and then --

 

There's pressure, certainly. Pressure and stretching and fullness inside her and the warm, solid weight of his body lowering onto hers as he drives his cock steadily into her. Pressure and stretching and fullness, but no pain.

 

When he’s all the way inside her, there's a funny sort of sensation as she closes around the slightly pinched-in base of him. For a second, he’s still, and she’d be happy to let the second go on for a long time. The full feeling is nice, and overall she feels very… close. Connected.

 

Then he shifts his hips, and there's a surprising burst of sensation, almost an electric spark, as the largest bump on his pelvis rubs against her still-sensitive clit, and she yelps and opens her eyes.

 

~*~

 

He watches her face closely as he pushes himself inside her: the little line of tension between her brows, the way she bites her lower lip and whines. 

 

The way she moans when he finally settles all the way inside her, deep in the softest part of her. Her fingers clutch at his shoulders a little, and she whimpers. He thinks it has probably been a little while for her.

 

It has been a little while for him, too, and for a moment he just enjoys the close, warm feeling of her cunt around him.

 

Then he adjusts his hips, ready to start moving, and she yelps.

 

~*~

 

For a second when she opens her eyes he looks almost startled. Then his mouth curves into a thin smile and he shifts his pelvis against her quite intentionally, rubbing the hard bumps against her clit, and it makes her eyes close again; makes her give out a stuttering cry; makes her whole body shiver.

 

He does it again, deliberate and steady, and she tenses and shudders against him, and she can almost hear his smile as he presses his cheek to hers and murmurs “ _ see? enthusiasm”  _ in her ear.

 

What he's doing feels so good she can't gather her wits enough snap back anything clever. It seems unnecessary anyway. Instead of speaking, she digs her fingers into his shoulders and answers with a whining moan. She doesn't care what asinine things he says; she just wants more.

 

~*~

 

He lifts himself up so he can look at her face. Her eyes are shut tight and she's frowning as if in concentration.

 

He rocks his hips, rubbing against her clit and feeling her twitch and shudder and squeeze around him.

 

“You like this.” he says to her, half-laughing.

 

She whines in answer: she’s panting, whimpering, shuddering, clinging to him as if there were nothing in the Galaxy but him, and nothing that mattered but the feel of his cock inside her and the grinding of his pelvis against her. It's very gratifying, and he’s enjoying it a great deal, smiling thinly to himself and rocking against her, and laughing softly while she flexes and stretches and whines.

 

And then the grinding of his hips against hers starts to do something else to her. 

 

Around his hips, her legs begin to tremble, shivering madly, unevenly. Then her back arches suddenly, sharply, pressing her breasts against him, and then her back snaps the other way, and she stiffens momentarily like a board, and then the trembling in her thighs seems to travel inward, concentrating in her hips, which begin to twist and twitch wildly in strange contrast to her suddenly tense, straining upper body. He grinds his hips into her harder, steady and relentless, and the shuddering and twitching in her lower body escalates like a fever, and the muscles in her back, chest, shoulders, neck, arms stiffen with such force they seem almost to strain against her bones, and she's whining a long uninterrupted moan like an animal in heat. He presses on her harder still, rocking and rocking and rocking --

 

And the twitching in her hips stops, her whole body suspended against his for a second in perfect tension. Her head snaps back into the mattress and she cries out as if she were begging him for something, and her lower abdomen pulls inward, and the muscles inside her spasm and clench and flutter around him, and she gasps his name -- 

 

And the brutal, visceral, revelatory feeling rips through him like a blaster-bolt, and for a horrible second he has the almost overwhelming urge to gather her close against his chest and whisper the terrible truth about Higher Skies into her ear, to hold her as tells her and then to go on holding her --

 

He grabs her wrists, pins first one and then the other to the mattress above her head with his hands, just to feel in control again, and puts his face so close to hers their foreheads are almost touching.

 

“You like being fucked by me,” he growls in Cheunh, talking to her for his own sake rather than for hers, saying something to bring his mind back to the moment in a more appropriate way. 

 

She hardly seems aware of what he's saying. She's bucking and straining against him, the sweet soft flesh of her cunt clutching close around him in great waves, and she’s crying and crying and crying out her high sweet note of worship, and he turns all his considerable will to the business of fucking her.

 

“You like being fucked by me more than other men,” he goes on, still in Cheunh, talking at her almost desperately, and beginning to pump his cock in and out of her harder, in an arc that’s driven by all the muscles of his back and balanced by his thighs and that makes him feel almost as crazed as it does her. He closes his fingers around her wrists until his knuckles pale, and presses his face into hers and pumps his faster and harder with each thrust and mutters at her while she wails and spasms and arches. “You need me. You need my cock inside you; you need me fucking you; you need having me all the way inside you; no one else can make you feel like this; no one can fuck you like I can; no one can make you feel this; no one else can do this for you; no one else can care for you; no one else can can mean what I can mean --”

 

~*~

 

Arihnda is dimly aware that his talking, although she doesn't understand it. She doesn't really like what he's doing with her wrists, either, but between the relentless action of his cock inside her, the thick base and the teasing ridges and the pressure of the head all working against the contractions of her cunt, and the bumps on his pelvis that strike sparks of shuddering pleasure from her clit like a flint-stone, she can't articulate or really even process much of anything. He plows into her relentlessly and it seems to batter her mind apart, and in a perverse and inexplicable way the weight of his body on hers seems to be the only thing holding her together.

 

By the time he, too, shudders apart, cumming with hard thrusts and a guttural cry, Arihnda’s body is as strained and worn as if she had worked herself almost to collapse in a sparring session.

 

The mass of his cock inside her, still semi-hard, almost hurts, and his weight on top of her is like a stone, but when he pulls out and rolls off of her, that painful, too. Everything is suddenly sore in new and different ways, and she's cold to boot.

 

But she's too worn out to move and her brain hasn't knitted itself back together enough to let her form words.

 

She's gasping, ragged breaths loud in her ears, and beside her, he's breathing loudly too.

 

That goes on for a minute before she feels him roll away from her, feels the bed shift, and a second later he rolls back, and there's something satiny and soft being draped over her -- she touches it with her hand and realizes it's her dress, settling over her from the waist down like a blanket. And a second later, there's something heavier, less soft, on her torso, over her chest and her shoulders and her arms, and he's tucking whatever it is in around her, and she opens her eyes, and realizes it's his uniform tunic. She blinks at him, bleary-eyed, and he stops and looks at her and the expression on his face is as hard and sober as if they had just survived a battle.

 

And then he touches the side of her face, gently, and kisses her temple, and pulls her against his chest, and Arihnda, who is too exhausted even to think, closes her eyes and lets him do it.

 

~*~

 

He lays with her until she drifts into sleep, until she is so far gone that she is snoring softly.

 

Then, carefully, he slips off of the small bed, and examines what he can see of her life.

 

Her room is indeed as compact and neat and as a ship-board cabin. She has no decorations, no markers of sentiment aside from a small jewelry box on a slim side-table. The table also holds a mirror and a hairbrush, a data pad, and her small clutch purse. In the purse is a comm, a credit chip, a set of keys. Nothing else. All these things together seem to be the sum total of her existence.

 

Then he slips on his boxers and, padding softly on bare feet, emerges into the apartment. The lights are still on, but all is silent. It is impossible to know if Juahir Madras has returned, possibly while he and Arihnda were too engaged with one another to hear, and either left again or simply gone to bed.

 

He checks the kitchen, and sees the fragments of the shattered mug still scattered across the tile floor.

 

That is not so informative, really. If Juahir Madras is somewhere in the apartment, perhaps she is a poor housekeeper, or perhaps she expects her friend to clean her own messes, or perhaps she simply did not go into the kitchen.

 

He, too, leaves the shattered mug as he found it.

 

He looks over the living room as he passes back through it. It, too, is devoid of personal decor. There is a central table with a holoprojector, a couch, two armchairs, nothing else.

 

He uses the fresher. Like the rest of the apartment, it is almost military in its sparseness.

 

He turns from his examination back to Arihnda’s room, and stands for a minute by the bed where she is stretched, sleeping. After a moment’s consideration, he crawls onto the bed beside her.

 

She groans a little in her sleep, not quite protest, when he puts his weight on the bed: elbows and knees making points of pressure that cause uneven dips and rises in the mattress, a necessary step in the business of settling beside her.

 

“Shh,” he says, which he does not really need to say, and which seems to wake her more.

 

She frowns, half-waking, perceives him, and tries to same his name, mush-mouthed with sleep, then tries again and does a better job. It is intoned as a question.

 

“Shh,” he says again.

 

He slides his body against hers, pushing her over, and she moves obediently towards the wall, and says his name, as a question, again.

 

“I am here,” he says softly, wrapping his arms around her and nestling his face into her neck. She does indeed feel much more enjoyable against him than a pillow.

 

She makes a sound that is either assent or agreement, or perhaps both, and shifts her body a little so she is, presumably, more comfortable. Almost immediately after, her breathing evens into sleep again.

 

He takes a slow, deep breath, and then another, and then another. He is as aware of her body -- soft skin and soft curves -- as he had been aware of his bedding yesterday morning. He adjusts the set of his face against the warm skin of her neck and shoulder, and takes a slow, deep breath, nostrils flaring, the smell of her filling his lungs, his belly expanding and pressing against the plane of her back. Almost instinctively, he tightens his arms around her.

 

Eventually, he too drops into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the "random dick starring in porn" element of this challenge i was assigned bad dragon's "lenneth" design. feel free to tell me if had any success describing it ;P


	5. somebody could walk into this room and say your life is on fire

Arihnda wakes up tangled in the twisted fabric of her dress and his uniform tunic. She is on her side, wedged between the wall of her room and a solid, warm bulk lying against her back. She is a little stiff, a little cramped, a little sore -- and very happy.

 

She rolls over into Thrawn, and he makes a grunting sound that, sleep-addled and in the full grip of her own contentment, she thinks she would be perfectly happy to hear every morning for the rest of her life. Some little part of her mind knows, logically, she only has this thought because she's half asleep.

 

She doesn't really care.

 

“Good morning,” she murmurs, wrapping an arm around his waist, pressing into him, and kissing his neck before resting her face on his chest.

 

“Good morning,” he says. He draws out the words. He says it a little lazily, a little arrogantly. He sounds quite pleased, and maybe content, and he slides an arm around her while he speaks. “It is a free day for you, I take it? Your office follows a standard week.”

 

“Mm, yes,” she says, pressing closer to him.

 

“For me as well,” he says into the top of her head. His hand wanders a little, and that’s fine. There’s a minute or so of silence, and then in a tone that makes her heart flutter, he says: “You are feeling well?”

 

She smiles, just about from ear to ear, and then, giddy, amusement lacing her words, she says: “I don’t know, I could feel better.”

 

“Oh?” he says, his smug baritone voice palpable where their bodies touch. “Could you?”

 

“I think I could,” she says, exaggerated ease in her voice.   
  


He trails his fingers lazily along her back for a few seconds, and then all at once he rolls on top of her, growling: “Let us find out.”

 

~*~

 

She is very entertainingly eager for more attention, and he finds it is not at all a burden to provide -- although she turns out to be a little sore, a little over-sensitive in inconvenient ways, in a few spots.

 

But his willingness to work around these little issues makes her soften with such lovely gratitude that being accommodating becomes, he finds, its own sort of pleasure.

 

~*~

 

Things are going along very nicely until he does something that hurts unexpectedly, something that hadn’t hurt last night, and she makes a noise that is a little bit surprise, but mostly pain.

 

His manner changes instantly, and while he inspects the place that hurts, Arihnda rests a hand on the top of his head and feels something she genuinely thinks might be love.

 

~*~

 

When they finally emerge from her room, it is almost mid-day. She has wrapped herself in a spectacularly ugly bathrobe that he assumes was never meant for anyone else to see, and he takes her wearing as an even better sign of trust than their fucking. 

 

He himself is wearing his boxers; she’d politely not stared too much at the closed and flat front of his pelvis when his flaccid cock had withdrawn into his body, but she had finally managed to ask how he kept himself clean. He’d offered to show her and she’d turned an amusing color, and then through an apparent effort of will had turned the offer back on him and said “How about after breakfast?”, which had led them out of her room and towards the kitchen.

 

There is still no sign of Juahir Madras.

 

And the shattered mug is still on the floor, exactly where Thrawn had left it. 

 

When Arihnda sees the mug on the floor, she freezes. Thrawn knows instantly that it was, somehow, important.

 

Slowly, Arihnda goes to the mug, and stoops, and picks up two of the largest pieces. She stands, and stares at them. And then, slowly, she says: “My mother gave this to me.”

 

She sounds like she is, possibly, about to cry. As she stands there holding the fragments of the mug, Thrawn stands still in the entrance of the kitchen and thinks he’s going to have to go to her and hold her while she weeps over a broken mug.

 

And then, slowly, with a series of quiet breaths, she calms herself. All on her own she masters herself, and puts herself right again.

 

“Well,” she says, sounding wan but clearly trying for good humor, “nothing lasts forever.” She presses a floorboard panel with her toe, and a miniature trash chute opens, and she tosses the pieces of the mug into it with only a fraction of a second’s hesitation, and covers the faint tremor in her hands by smoothing her robe. Then she turns to him, with a brittle smile: someone who knows their role. “Don’t worry about replacing it,” she says conversationally. “Accidents happen.”

 

And for a second, he feels as if he loves her.

 

He comes into the kitchen with her, and bends down, and sweeps up the rest of the shards and porcelain dust with his hands. He tosses these all into the trash chute, and then says: “What is for breakfast?”

 

~*~

 

Thrawn returns to the Thunder Wasp mid-afternoon. Eli’s gotten used to him kind of vanishing into the ether and turning up at odd moments, but never in a rumpled dress uniform looking like a Moff who's just added Grand to his title. He has to process it for a second before saying: “Did you have a good night?”

 

“Very good,” says Thrawn, sweeping around his desk and settling into his workstation. He works very fast for a couple of seconds and then says easily: “I should like to run these three simulations again today, with the highlighted personnel only. Can you arrange that, for perhaps an hour from now?”

 

“Yes, Sir,” says Eli. Then, turning to the door and half turning back, he pushes the issue, hoping in the desperate, hopeless way of people watching bad news approach like a landslide that he's going to be proven blessedly, blissfully wrong about the thing he already kind of knows: “How are things going with Pryce?”

 

For a second, a soft smile touches the corners of Thrawn’s mouth. “Very well, I think,” he says. 

 

There's a kind of stream of curses inside Eli’s head. His mouth says: “Right. I’ll get this set up.”

 

“Thank you,” says Thrawn, who is engaged with his workstation.

 

Eli’s not even paying attention to the datasheets Thrawn’s forwarded to him.

 

Instead he’s thinking:  _ Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe, somehow, I’m wrong. I know you're not an idiot, right? You didn't get promoted this fast by being an idiot. I’ve seen you work. I  _ know  _ you're not an idiot. You’re not gonna light a match on your career and mine, are you, you smug, insufferable -- _

 

Eli cuts that thought off, and tries to go back to telling himself he's wrong. 

 

An hour later he's on the bridge with Thrawn,  who is in a crisp working uniform. Thrawn is commanding a skeleton crew during the training exercise in which Hammerly had performed the worst. Hammerly is at her station, looking like she's suspended from the ceiling by wires. Eli, whose job for the next couple hours is mostly to push the buttons that run the OPFOR actions for the simulation, feels like he's been asked to sit still and watch a twelve-speeder pileup -- which is basically how he feels all the time lately.

 

Predictably, Hammerly dumps the whole scenario into a bucket of shak.

 

The minimal crew rustles with the wave of exasperation that people out of patience share when they can't vent it directly at the source of their trouble, but Osgoode isn't around, so there's no actual shouting. Small mercies, Eli thinks.

 

Thrawn pauses, reviews something at his command station, and then rises from his chair and goes to Hammerly. Hammerly looks like she's hoping the floor will open up, or maybe she'll just get lucky and die for no reason but with very good timing. Everyone tries politely to pretend they can't see, or hear, because even Thrawn must have a limit --

 

Thrawn bends over her workstation and says something so softly no one else can hear. Hammerly’s look of mortification increases, but only for a second, and then it turns into real embarrassment. Thrawn says a few more things, and the strained embarrassment on Hammerly’s face melts away. When Thrawn returns to his command chair, Hammerly still looks frustrated with herself, but she looks determined, too -- and she's sitting up straight, not like she's hanging from wires, but like she wants to be where she is.

 

“Let us start from the beginning,” says Thrawn, settling into his chair. He nods to Eli, a faint curve in the corner of his mouth as if to say  _ you will see.  _ “Ensign, begin.”

 

It goes a lot better. It's almost infuriating how much better it goes. It goes so well that of course Thrawn is justified in standing on the bridge and talking to Hammerly again, saying very complimentary things that he clearly intends for everyone else to hear. And he's justified in giving Eli a look that more or less means:  _ see? _

 

Eli does see. He sees exactly why centcom promotes Thrawn just about every hour on the hour like clockwork, and he sees that Hammerly really does belong at the station Thrawn’s chosen for her, and he sees that Thrawn is a very good commander, which he'd already known. That's all stuff he'd already known.

 

He just doesn't see why Thrawn’s willing to risk all that for some woman who is sure as shak gonna be kriffing pissed when she learns the truth, and who could burn Thrawn’s career to ashes if she decided to take her anger and go to a Moff and cry foul. At least, that's the risk Thrawn’s taking if what Eli hopes isn't happening actually is.

 

So he keeps trying to tell himself he's wrong.

 

Maybe he just misunderstands. Thrawn's usually a competent judge of character. Maybe he's told her about Higher Skies already, and she's decided she might as well be in for a chip if she's in for a chit.

 

~*~

 

Arihnda doesn't want to seem clingy, but she doesn't want to be the one doing all the waiting, either. And after last night, she figures, she's probably within her rights to send him a note, so she does. It's very simple. All it says it “comm me.”

 

Late that evening, he does. She doesn't bother pretending not to be delighted. And he seems very,  _ very _ happy that she's happy to hear from him.

 

And he is more than happy to come over again.

 

~*~

 

As it turns out, Juahir Madras had been absent the other night because is traveling for a few weeks. The place Arihnda names as her destination is passed on to the ISB, and Thrawn and Arihnda trade going out for staying in. For almost the entirety of the three weeks that Juahir Madras is away, Thrawn spends all his free moments with Arihnda, staying in.

 

They order food, rarely from the same place. She never orders the same thing twice. She is very set on trying new things, almost to the point of rigorousness. Making up for the lack of culture on Lothal, he supposes. Educating herself. And she does it with the same degree of discipline she brings to most everything else: she choose quality over flash in her dress, orderliness over sentiment in her living space, and variety over volume in her eating.

 

She is also determined to find good things, and enjoys them very much for their own sake. He learns that she and Juahir Madras became friends primarily because Juahir had introduced her to a tiny speck of a restaurant that served some of the best -- Thrawn, who has never viewed food as more than fuel, doesn’t know anything about the food Arihnda describes next, but she promises to take him to the same restaurant, someday, which he finds endearing. 

 

They talk. Arihnda doesn’t watch holovids for leisure, has hardly even seen enough of them in her life to have formed an opinion of her own taste, so that way of passing the time between feeding themselves and pursuing other pursuits is more or less off the table. 

 

Talking suits Thrawn just fine. He learns many things about her that are not relevant to his investigation, but which he files carefully and precisely in his memory regardless. 

 

He also learns things about the personal histories of Driller MarDapp and Juahir Madras -- their social lives, their travel habits, their tastes and preferences -- that the ISB can not as easily reconstruct from digital footprints as she can simply tell him, and which provide a thin thread of continued justification for the time he spends with Arihnda.

 

The justification is mostly for himself. Only Vanto knows how much time he is actually spending with Arihnda.

 

Arihnda, who he thinks of now by name.

 

Arihnda, who he thinks of by name, and who is always radiantly happy to see him.

 

They talk about Coruscant and the Empire. She hedges here, sometimes. Hedges on whatever it is that motivates her. But something, clearly, does. She seems, in her own way, almost as driven towards whatever it is she doesn’t name as he is towards his own ends, and that is very interesting.

 

They eat. They listen, sometimes, to opera recordings that Thrawn thinks are of good quality. Trying to engage her about most other art had proved a wasted effort: she clearly understands provenance, technique, and monetary value, all of which make art collections into small biographies of their owners, but she takes no genuine pleasure in the topic. But she likes music, or at least she likes lying against him on her couch while a recording flickers above the coffee table. Either possibility works equally well for him, but he thinks it likely she genuinely enjoys the shows themselves since she never minds discussing the libretti. Most of the time, in fact, those discussions are both started and driven by her.

 

They eat. They talk. They listen to opera. 

 

They drink caf, sometimes. He does, in fact, bring her a replacement mug. It is very different in style than the one that broke, intentionally so. It is his own mark on her. She is very gratifyingly touched by the gesture, but she does not use it with him. Instead, takes the mug to her office.

 

He thinks there are a few layers of appropriate symbolism to that, and he enjoys all of them.

 

For three weeks they eat. They talk. They listen to opera. They drink caf.

 

And there is, naturally, more sex.

 

But Thrawn finds himself very much enjoying all the time before and after the fucking, as well. He finds that he enjoys talking to her especially; she knows a great deal about the personalities on Coruscant, and their interrelations -- she illustrates the web of personalities and personal connections that is Imperial Politics with a sharp, almost cruel humor that genuinely enjoys.

 

And he becomes quite comfortable in Arihnda’s home. 

 

Even after he uses the late-night hours to explore Juahir Madra’s bedroom, which has more personal touches than Arihnda’s own, and to download the contents of Juahir Madras’ datapad, left casually on a nightstand, onto a flash storage chip, he continues coming to visit, and the continues to sleep over. He finds that he prefers sleeping in her bed over sleeping in his own.

 

He prefers it because he enjoys having her sleep next to him. 

 

Even in her sleep she is completely open to him, and responds to his touch -- to his his lips on her face, his hand on her breast, his fingers skimming her arms, her belly, her thighs. Pressed against him, lax and trusting, she makes small, contended noises that make the hammer in his chest strike a the steady rhythm that goes  _ mine, mine, mine, mine, mine. _

 

He does not tell her about Higher Skies.

 

~*~

 

Juahir’s about halfway through her trip when H’sishi comms asking for adjustments to a timesheet, extra documentation of the last few days of classes Juahir had run before leaving. So Juahir owes her the updated sheets, but she didn’t bring a data pad with her. 

 

It wouldn’t be such a problem, normally, but H’sishi is very punctual about the payroll, and while Juahir will get paid eventually one way or the other, she really needs the cash to be in her soonest paycheck. Rent’s due, and while Arihnda  _ can  _ cover, Juahir really doesn’t want to ask. Arihnda can be generous, but she gets a little uptight about money. Best not to mess around with that if she doesn’t have to.

 

But what she can ask Arihnda to do, the kind of generosity she can definitely rely on, is to fill out the sheets for her, according to direction, and make sure H’sishi get them. And even if Arihnda does notice the comm signal is a little weaker than it should be based on where Juahir had said she was going, it probably won't be an issue.

 

She’s gotten pretty good at lying about most of the stuff she's really up to, and about the people she does that stuff with.

 

“Arihnda?”

 

“Hello, Juahir. Hello. One second, I’m just --” Arihnda’s turned on her mobile comm, set it somewhere, and is off clattering around in what sounds like the kitchen. She calls to someone Juahir can’t see: “Is caf alright? I’m out of tea.”

 

There’s a pause, footsteps, someone out of range of the comm. “Caf will be fine.” 

 

That’s a man’s voice. That’s -- Juahir’s mind grinds like stuck gears, and slowly begins to turn over. Arihnda has  _ never  _ had a man over to their apartment. Arihnda hasn’t even been on a date in… almost a year, as far as Juahir knows. And this sounds -- Arihnda sounds the way she sounds when she’s doing two things at once and talking to Juahir in the morning. 

 

She sounds  _ comfortable. _

 

The man’s voice again: “Is that Ms. Madras?”

 

Juahir almost sniggers. Trust Arihnda to get comfortable with a man who refers to her politely as  _ Ms. Madras  _ in a deep professorial baritone. Then she frowns. She thinks she knows that voice. Vaguely, but she can’t --

 

“Yeah, she’s -- “ Arihnda comes into frame. “What do you need?” she asks it with genuine care, but no more concern that is really warranted, which is to say: no concern at all.

 

“I wanted you to take something to H’sishi for me, but I can call back --”

 

“Payroll?”

 

“Don’t start,” Juahir says, jocular. “You know I’m usually pretty good about that.”

 

“I know -- you used to help me stay organized,” says Arihnda, laughing a little.

 

Juahir’s smiling too, but she’s watching Arihnda’s flickering three-quarter holo with an morbid fascination. Juahir taking messages for her in Bash Four isn’t something Arihnda would normally  _ joke  _ about. Juahir usually has to soft-shoe around Arihnda’s former career for Renking, which is a nasty shak-pit of a sore spot. Who the kriff  _ \--  _ Kriff doesn’t quite cut it. Who the  _ fuck’s  _ got her friend on cloud nine? Who -- what kind of -- she  _ knows  _ she knows that voice.  _ How  _ does she know that voice?

 

Arihnda’s talking again. “I hate to be a bad friend, Juahir, but would you mind --”

 

“Hey, no problem. Can you call me when you’re free tomorrow? I’m two hours ahead of Coruscant standard.”

 

“Sure thing,” says Arihnda, and she switches off the comm before Juahir can say goodbye.

 

~*~

 

Thrawn knows it would have been informative had Arihnda carried on a fuller discussion with Juahir Madras, but he is not surprised that she did not. He is, also, a little flattered by it. He enjoys increasingly being the center of her attention. It pleases him very much that she prefer him above her friend. That friend is less deserving of her attentiveness in any case.

 

They skip the caf.

 

Or rather he coaxes her away from it. He would like to remain the center of her attention; he does not want to compete with instant kettles and bitter brews and dirty mugs. He coaxes her away from the caf, and she follows his lead easily, and within half a standard hour or so they are tangled together on her bed, laying on their sides, sweaty and panting while he fucks her from behind.

 

His chest is flush against her back and he is holding her leg up to keep her open, and pinning her close to him with his other arm tight against her chest, and he has one of his legs bent, foot braced on the mattress to give himself better leverage, and he is fucking her with the first two thirds of his cock: the head and the ridges she appreciates so much, and that sometimes make her cum if he can strike the right places inside her.

 

He appreciates her responses to him very much. She is clinging to his forearm with both hands, and her back tenses wonderfully against his chest, her cunt twitches around his shaft sporadically and very enjoyably. He has his neck twisted at an angle that is a little uncomfortable, but that lets him watch her face: she is fantastically expressive. Her brows are drawn up and together and her eyes are closed, and her mouth is a wide open. All of it together makes a sort of tenderly worried moue that means she is lost somewhere deep in the feeling of him, and she is maxing excellent sounds that indicate the same thing.

 

The hammer in his chest is striking out the sound  _ mine, mine, mine, mine  _ with every thrust of his cock, and every breathy, whimpering moan from her mouth.

 

And then, by accident, because he has moved a little to make himself more comfortable as he keeps rocking away inside her, he hits a very good spot.

 

Her body goes tense against him. Her cunt constricts around his cock. She lets out a tremulous sound that twists about his brain like a steel band and seizes there like a vice, as tight around his mind as her fingers become on his forearm, and then she cries his name. 

 

It crushes his ability to think completely out of existence, for a moment.

 

“You love me,” he gasps out, in Cheunh, digging his fingers into her thigh and tightening his arm around her chest so fiercely it makes her whimper in protest. He goes on repeating himself as if the words might alleviate the pressure in his brain somehow: “You love me. You love me.”

 

He adjusts his grip on her thigh, and digs his foot into the mattress, and starts fucking her harder, and she lets out the same wail each time he thrusts, and it makes his skull over-full. He drops his forehead to her neck, and fucks her and fucks her and fucks her, and says “You love me, you love me, you love me” in Cheunh. He fucks her until he can’t fuck her anymore, and it leaves them both slack, their breathing ragged. 

 

After only a short moment, she begins to try and turn into him, her hands fluttering at his arm and shoulder as she turns her wrung-out body one ponderous semi-rotation at a time.

 

He does not even open his eyes as he adjusts his body to accommodate her: wraps his arms around her and pulls her close against his chest.

 

~*~

 

Juahir gets a comm from Arihnda mid-morning the next day, which is breakfast time for Arihnda -- if Juahir hadn’t known the time difference, she’d have known from the caf. Her group, like everyone at the camp, all people with physical fitness training and martial arts skills but no military background, is about to start a round of target practice. That’s the usual pattern: shooting in the morning, pathfinding mid-day to late afternoon, more shooting at night.

 

But Arihnda doesn’t need to know any of that.

 

And since Arihnda’s doing her favor, Juahir doesn’t want to tell her to call back.

 

Juahir bows out of the morning’s activity with a quick wave and a nondescript “catch up to you later,” and settles into her private tent, which is far enough from the makeshift shooting range that Arihnda probably won’t hear the blasters.

 

“I can call back at lunch,” Arihnda says.

 

“No, it’s fine. Let’s get this out of the way, as long as you have time before work.”

 

“Plenty,” says Arihnda, settling in at what is probably the kitchen counter. “I’ve got your pad, I hope you don’t mind. Walk me through it.”

 

It’s only the work of a couple minutes, and then Arihnda forwards it via universal connection to H’sishi. Arihnda gives every indication of being ready to sign off, but --

 

“Hey, Arihnda?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Can I ask -- “

 

“What?”

 

“Was that the guy?”

 

Arihnda opens her mouth, closes it, frowning, what Juahir thinks of as her friend’s Violent Privacy Reflex clearly kicking in. Juahir’s ready to write it off, she can pry better when she’s back and they’re talking in person, and then Arihnda says: “I -- yes.”

 

Juahir leaps at the moment. “I knew it! So you’re gonna tell me about him? What’s he like -- you know --”

 

“Juahir.”

 

“Well it was worth a try. How many times -- nevermind. Tell me how it’s going!”

 

Arihnda’s quiet for a minute, a thoughtful frown on her face, and then her face clears, and words start to bubble out of her like joy.

~*~

 

The consecutive evenings of Juahir Madras’ absence go on. Wherever her true destination was, it was not the planet she had named for Arihnda. And her data pad has private notes on some of her students, but they are cryptic and correspond to no known code. They might indicate a person’s usefulness or sympathy towards a rebellion, or they might be about money, or skill. 

 

Thrawn sets the question aside, and indulges fully in the time he takes with Arihnda.

 

One night, just as they getting to her bed, she stops him. She puts both hands on her shoulders, and says: “I’d like to be on top.”

 

He tilts his head at her. They have avoided that -- she is obviously not very comfortable with it, and he has not pushed. “Are you certain?” he asks.

 

She nods. It’s the brisk, short nod she uses when she has reached a decision. And then, face and mood softer, she says: “I’d like you to have what you want.”

 

She means it so completely -- the hammer in his chest strikes a single blow that aches. He takes her face in his hands and kisses her, and then whispers: “At your own pace, of course.”

 

“Well, certainly not at yours,” she says with cultivated light humor, and that makes him kiss her again.

 

They get undressed separately, and a little fast, and he lays down on the bed for her. He is more excited by the prospect of her trying for him, trying only because of and entirely for him, than he has been by anything with any other partner in recent memory. His cock is so hard it aches. The steady beat  _ mine, mine, mine  _ is thudding away inside him and his breath is as shallow as it has ever been as she clambers with charming gracelessness atop him.

 

It is more or less like the first time, only she looks much more determined.

 

And he doesn’t rush her.

 

When she finally slides fully onto him, taking in and blowing out an audible breath, and starts to settle in, rocking and twisting her hips and whining a little as her clit meets the texture of him, he finds he is pushing himself up onto his elbows, to be closer to her. To see her better. Her eyes are closed in private concentration, and her hands are braced against him for balance, and he can hear her breathing. She splays her hips a little wider, and grinds against him, and makes herself whimper.

 

“Such a good girl,” he murmurs in Cheunh as he watches her find a motion that’s comfortable, sliding her hips forward and back in a flat arc. “Such a good girl, to try for me.”

 

She lets her head go back, then brings it forward again, and opens her eyes. “Is this good?” she asks.

 

“Yes,” he breathes in Basic. “Yes.” 

 

She lets her eyes drift closed again, leans into her hands, her weight pressing into his chest, and starts rocking her hips again, harder and faster. Her brow is knit and she is biting her lip and making little sounds that are as much effort as they are pleasure. 

 

Thrawn stays propped on his elbows and watches her face. She is working so hard, and it is clear that she is not, without a great deal more work, going to cum in this position. It is clear too that she is working because she wants him to be happy. He pushes himself up on one arm and wraps a hand around her neck, and pulls her to him, and kisses her. She folds against him, but keeps her hips rocking. When he murmurs her name she moans beautifully.

 

The hammer inside him strikes the ringing bell  _ mine, mine, mine  _ so powerfully he feels as though something in his chest might rupture.

 

~*~

 

Yularen’s quite pleased by the things Thrawn is bringing him. 

 

He has a couple skeptical twinges about the way Thrawn’s keeping Arihnda Pryce engaged -- he isn’t sure, but he wonders if they haven’t -- it does happen, with informants, sometimes. Sometimes field operatives find sex the most convenient way to deflect suspicion.

 

But he waves off his own worries. 

 

Thrawn is so focused, steady, professional, so even-keeled and neutral about everything, and he never even alludes to anything more than the most minimally necessary socialization with her. Clearly he’s gotten into her house, but he paints a picture of a quite private woman who is interested mostly in gossip and who extends good social graces to her friends. So, Yularen tells himself, Thrawn and his good manners and his understated wit have won their investigation a friend. Good enough.

 

And hopefully good enough to let them get a little more usefulness out of her, and soon. His slicers can rip open most of Higher Skies’ datanet remotely if they have to, but it would be easier to have information passed hand-to-hand, and easier still to do their jobs if someone plants a thief program for them. Much more convenient, he thinks, to use someone already on the inside than to use a field operative. 

 

And Thrawn seems very keen on the idea that Ms. Pryce, Arihnda, could be useful after Higher Skies. She is, he tells Yularen, very keen on an Imperial career. Yularen can certainly help with that. So Yularen’s generally come to be of the opinion that they ought to get more use out of her, if they can.

 

He comms Thrawn, arranges a brief meeting, and tells him so. 

 

~*~

 

They are laying in bed together when he tells her. It is after sex, not the most vigorous they have ever had, and she is sitting up, one leg curled to her chest. He has asked her about her childhood, has let her chatter happily, and then less happily -- evidently adolescence was not so pleasant for her, but it seems to him that it rarely is for humans. In that way, they are much like Chiss. He notes the change in tone, and does not address it.

 

He is resting on his hip beside her, propped up on his elbow, his body half-curled around hers. He runs his knuckles up and down her upper arm while she talks, and brushes his lips gently against the soft skin of her back from time to time. He is not really listening to her. He keeps his face close to her body, where he can feel her warmth, and breathes in the scent of her: her skin and her soap and her perfume.

 

He is avoiding his orders.

 

He will get to them in time.

 

Beside him, she twists. He looks up. She is frowning at him. “What’s wrong?” she says.

 

He turns his gaze to her arm, examines the skin there as he runs his knuckles from her shoulder to her elbow and back again. He would have preferred Yularen let him set his own schedule for this.

 

She twists a little further, touches his face. “Thrawn. What’s wrong?”

 

He is perfectly still for a moment. Then he takes her hand in his, and kisses it. “There is something I must tell you.”

 

~*~

 

Arihnda feels like there’s water in her skull. Like there’s water in her skull, coming in like the tide, making a weird pressure in her ears that makes everything sound very far away.

 

~*~

 

“No.”

 

“I assure you I am not wrong --”

 

“You’re -- you’re  _ mistaken.”  _

 

Thrawn lets that hang for a good long while, during which she holds his gaze quite steadily, determinedly, before he replies.

 

“I am not,” he says.

 

“There might be a misunderstanding.” And it’s clear even she knows she’s reaching.

 

She is taking this less well than he had hoped. He presses his lips together into a thin line. “I am sorry, Arihnda.”

 

“You’re not -- I don’t need you to be sorry,” she says with sudden sharpness. Then she stares at the fall wall for a minute, and finally says: “What about this? Let’s check, together, you and I. I have keys, no one will be there at this hour, and if you’ve got the ISB’s blessing it’s all stuff you could look at anyway as easily as you could walk into Yinchom, so I’m not really -- so it’s fine. We’ll go and check, together, right now, you and I. I know my way around the dataframe more than well enough to show -- well enough for us both to be sure. How does that sound?”

 

Thrawn avers that it sounds fine, although he knows what she will find. Of course, he does not say the second part out loud.

 

She only has to spend a few minutes at workstation, typing swiftly, searching on her own, without any further hint or direction from Thrawn, who stands by her in complete silence, to uncover more than enough for the scales to fall from her eyes. 

 

And for the stars in them to go out.

 

Afterwars, in the office, she stands in hollow silence, and eventually he has to press her a little. Does she understand --

 

She snaps at him, then recovers herself. Of course she won’t give him away. Of course she’ll do -- she’ll do whatever the ISB needs. Of course she will. Then her face twists. She’ll do whatever the ISB needs, as long as she gets to see Juahir Madras arrested. She wants to see it. She wants to see it, in person.

 

Thrawn allows that that will most likely be possible. Most likely, it can be arranged.

 

There is another, uglier silence after that. He wonders when, or if, she will reach out for him. He admires her self-containment, of course, in fact he thinks he loves her for it, but he would be willing, if she would only reach for him -- 

 

Finally he suggests that perhaps he should escort her home. She agrees.

 

They have made it all the way back to her bedroom -- moving in silence, his hand flat on her back -- before she asks if he would, please, just leave.

 

~*~

 

Juahir comes back to a dead home.

 

It’s not that the apartment is silent, it’s the  _ quality  _ of the silence. Something inexplicable, intangible but as solid as stone.

 

She puts her bag down carefully, and goes looking for Arihnda.

 

She finds her laying in her bed, on her side, staring at the wall. All her clothes are on, even her shoes.

 

~*~

 

“Arihnda?” says Juahir from the doorway. 

 

Arihnda considers confronting her friend for only a split second.

 

The idea is more about catharsis than sense. She knows what she knows, and a screaming match won’t change it. All it will do is give Juahir time to run, or to warn the others.

 

And Arihnda thinks the only thing that’s left for her now, the only thing that’s just, is to see them all in stun cuffs. And she already has a plan for that.

 

So she says nothing.

 

After a minute, Juahir pads closer to the bed. “Arihnda?” she asks again, voice small and worried. 

 

Arihnda doesn’t answer.

 

Juahir sits on the be beside her, and puts a hand on Arihnda’s shoulder. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

 

Arihnda stares at the wall and doesn’t even bother to nod.

 

Then, with a heavy sigh, Juahir says “Oh, Arihnda, I’m  _ so sorry,”  _ and she sounds as grief-stricken as if she were the one who’d just had her heart broken. 

 

As soon as the word “sorry” is gone from her lips she lays herself down on the bed beside Arihnda and wraps her arms around her and presses her face to her shoulder and says again “I’m  _ so  _ sorry.”

 

Arihnda, bone-weary, takes it.

 

~*~

 

It is, bar none, the worst meeting Eli’s ever been in in his entire life.

 

He had his own trouble with his family, and his career’s been -- he admires Thrawn, mostly, occasional doubts aside, but working for him hasn’t exactly been the easiest path up. Well, it hasn’t been a path  _ up  _ at all. And it hasn’t been the safest path anywhere, either, so he’s not unsympathetic to feeling like you’ve had the carpeting ripped out from underneath you, like you’re spinning nose over tail while your whole life tumbles through a gutter full of shak, but…

 

But Eli really can’t imagine what it’s like to have found out that everyone and everything close to you in life was one big fat kriffing lie. No -- kriffing doesn’t really cut it. One big fat  _ fucking  _ lie. He can’t imagine it, and he doesn’t want to.

 

Pryce seems to be holding up okay. As well as Eli guesses anyone can, considering. She seems a little brittle, and extremely angry, but she’s present and focused and she’d got a sharp, quick answer for everything Yularen asks. And she’s more than ready to do whatever he needs her to.

 

But in spite of how well she seems to be taking things, Eli can see cracks in the armor. Every now and then, when Thrawn and Yularen speak directly to each other, her chin will drop, her head will turn a little, her gaze will go sideways and inward. She’ll blink a lot. Her hands will twist and skitter nervously on her knees, like she’s looking for something to do. 

 

Seeing it makes Eli’s heart ache.

 

But there’s really nothing he can do to help.

 

And then everything gets worse.

 

They’ve all made it to the end of the meeting --  _ survived,  _ Eli thinks. Pryce is going to plan a sniffer program in Higher Skies’ internal data frame, and Yularen is going to supply her with new copies of Higher Skies’ data cards, which layer a secondary thief program on top of the tech those cards already plant in the systems of the Senators and Moffs and bigwigs that Higher Skies recruits. Arihnda will keep doing her job as if everything is normal. Higher Skies will be none the wiser, and the ISB will suck up information from the office and from the people Driller targets like solar sails suck up sun. And Pryce is more than happy, more than ready, more willing to help with all of it.

 

Yularen is more than happy that she’s happy, and seems to have a sort of admiration for her ability to run headlong into the mission ahead. He seems to like her a little, which Eli thinks is at least, maybe, hopefully, an alright consolation prize. Maybe he’ll help put her on her feet again when all of this over.

 

And it’s going, Eli thinks, to be over soon.

 

Yularen says something that makes it clear the meeting is over. Pryce rises to depart. Thrawn, naturally, as her handler and point of contact, rises with her, to see her out.

 

As he rises to his feet beside her, he reaches for her: puts his hand on her shoulder gently, naturally -- like he’s concerned for her.

 

And Pryce flinches away from him. She spins on her heel and puts both her hands up and snarls “ _ You don’t touch me.”  _

 

Which just about answers any question Eli could possibly have had about what was going on between them. 

 

The room goes very still and very quiet, and it’s obvious to all four of them what’s happened. It’s obvious not just to himself but also to Yularen, Eli’s sure, what’s between Pryce and Thrawn. But somehow even worse than that, it’s clearly obvious to Pryce and Thrawn that her reaction has revealed everything. For a moment, they both look caught, like night animals in sudden light. They both know they’ve stepped in shak.

 

After only a second’s delay, Thrawn pulls his hand back and up, pacifying, and says, smoothly, “ _ Of course, forgive me.”  _ Pryce shakes herself a little, composes herself, and clearly she knows it’s down to her to set things steady again, because shakes her head and says, and says quite crisply: “ _ It’s no problem. I apologize. Thank you, Commander.” _

 

Yularen, watching them both, says nothing.

 

Eli wants to drops his head into his hands and scream.

 

He’s saved by Thrawn, ironically, who is still look at Pryce and who keeps looking at Pryce as he says: “Ensign Vanto, would you please escort Ms. Pryce out?”

 

There are six or seven things Eli wants to say, but all he says is “Yes, sir,” and he rises from the couch and makes a gesture from Arihnda to the door. She nods at him stiffly and takes her cue.

 

Walking Pryce out is just about one of the miserable experiences of Eli’s life.

 

She keeps her back straight and her head high and her chin level, but when Eli glances over at her, he sees her eyes are bright, and her body is tense and stiff in every movement. The corners of her mouth are pinched and downturned, and her eyebrows are a little too high. Her pain rolls off of her in waves, like heatshimmer.

 

Eli feels like he ought to say something, but he doesn’t know what to say.  _ Sorry about him, he’s an asshole,  _ which is just true _.  _ Or  _ Sorry you got fucked,  _ which is also true and kind of funny _.  _ Or  _ Please don’t wreck my career.  _ He sort of hates himself for letting his mind go there at all, but he can’t help but be worried. 

 

She seems like she’s playing ball, but he really wouldn’t blame her -- couldn’t blame her -- if she changed her mind about that. And Eli’s sure that Moff Ghadi isn't the only small-minded bastard out for Thrawn’s blood. He’s sure there are a hundred Culpers who would love to coax a story like this out of Pryce, and for the moment, even worried about himself, Eli’s almost angry enough on her behalf, angry enough about the obvious anguish radiating off her as she walks crisply silently beside him, that he sort of feels like if she does lash out, it would probably be justified. And Thrawn would definitely have brought it on himself.

 

But he really doesn’t want to encourage that either.

 

So he decides, and based on what little he’s seen of her personality he thinks she’d agree, that silence is far and away the best part of compassion, and he keeps his mouth shut, and he seethes inside at Thrawn.

 

Thrawn, who has, no matter what Eli might admire about him, always been kind of a piece of work, really. Eli’s always kind of known he could be a -- be a bit of a bastard. 

 

Okay, so _ bastard  _ doesn’t quite cut it. 

 

Kriffing bastard. 

 

Fucking bastard.

 

Next to him there’s a very slight hitch in Pryce’s breathing, gone almost before it starts. 

 

_ Fucking asshole bastard _ , Eli thinks.

 

And when they get to the landing pad where she can hail a speeder, Eli finally does say something. It comes out a little awkward, but he means it.

 

“Ma’am, I’m -- I mean, if there’s anything I can do for you --”

 

She sniffs once, brusquely, and shakes her head like she’s shaking a stray hair off her face. “I appreciate that, Ensign,” she says. “I’ll let you know. Thank you for seeing me out.”

 

~*~

 

When Vanto and Arihnda depart, Yularen holds up a hand. He feels maybe the angriest he has in years, like his whole body might start shaking from it. “Don’t,” he says. “Don’t. Speak.” He takes a deep breath. “Don’t speak.”

 

Thrawn’s mouth has closed, and he has retreated behind the impervious, impassive professional expression that Yularen had always found so admirable.

 

Now it makes Yularen want to shake him until his damnable composure rattles right off his face.

 

Instead, taking a controlled breath, he says: “What did I tell you, Thrawn?”

 

Thrawn says nothing, which Yularen, seething, has to admit is the smart move.

 

Yularen takes another careful breath, and goes on: “I told you -- these things get out of control, isn’t that what I told you? Didn’t I tell you to be careful? Yes or no.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Yes, I told you to be careful. That -- did you --” Yularen points at the door. He can hardly speak in a normal tone. “Was that you being careful?”

 

Again, Thrawn does not answer. Again, Yularen thinks that’s probably the smartest move.

 

Yularen takes another breath, nostrils flaring, pushes his temper down as much as he can, and then starts talking. “This is what we’re going to do. Are you listening? This is what’s going to happen.” He runs a hand through his hair. “ _ You.”  _ He takes another breath. “ _ You  _ are not going to speak to her again. You are not going to contact her. You are not going to touch her. You are not going to  _ see  _ her. Is that clear?”

 

No answer.

 

“I said: is that clear?”

 

“Yes, Colonel,” says Thrawn with perfect neutrality.

 

“Good. I am going to manage her the rest of the way through this -- this mess.” Then, in a moment of inspiration, he adds: “And Vanto, I’ll be borrowing him. It’ll give him some of that relevant professional experience you want so badly for him to have. At least he seems to know where the lines are.”

 

No answer, again, although Thrawn’s jaw might tense.

 

Yularen sighs again, and sags a little in his chair. He can’t blame Thrawn, entirely, for rebelling somewhat against… Against a number of things, he supposes. But that doesn’t make it any less of a disaster, potentially. There are a lot of people out for Thrawn’s blood, and if any of them get their hands on this woman and her anger… 

 

It feels like having gravity switched off, to realize Thrawn’s capable of such poor judgement.

 

“I’ll keep her quiet if I can,” Yularen says, “but I can’t keep -- I mean, it Thrawn. You stay away from that woman. You understand?”

 

“Yes, Colonel. Perfectly.”

 

“I  _ mean _ it, Thrawn. You step one toe out of line again here and you’ll be out on your ear, you understand? I won’t have a choice about letting it happen. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

 

“Yes, Colonel. I understand you perfectly.”

 

“Do you?” Yularen slumps against the back of his chair. “I wish you hadn’t done this. Thrawn, I wish you hadn’t done this.”

 

No answer to that, either. Not for a minute anyway. And then, carefully, Thrawn says: “Colonel, one question. For clarity’s sake.”

 

Yularen nods, a small motion with his chin.

 

“What would you prefer I do, in the event that she should contact me?”

 

Yularen can hardly believe the question. Taking a deep, calming breath, staring pointedly at his workstation, he says: “She’s not going to -- Thrawn. Thrawn, I hope to all the stars I know that you’re not actually this fucking stupid.”

 

Thrawn doesn’t answer.

 

Yularen moves his gaze from his workstation to his desk surface. He blows the air out of his lungs in a long whoosh. Thrawn still does not say anything. Yularen, nursing the bitter sting of disappointment, can’t bring himself to look up.


	6. as if i'd never noticed the way she brushed her hair from her forehead

There are times Thrawn finds himself staring at the comm on his desk and thinking:  _ Comm me.  _ He stares with a ferocious, almost physical intensity, and thinks:  _ Comm me. You need me. Comm me.  _ Naturally, it accomplishes nothing.

 

There are other times where Thrawn loses track of himself a little more, and stares unfocused at the comm, and thinks:  _ Comm me, Arihnda. I’m here. Comm me. _

 

That doesn't accomplish anything, either.

 

~*~

 

Arihnda throws away the mug. She stops speaking to Juahir almost entirely. She does fine at work. Work is, perversely, the only place she is fine. She pursues Driller’s chosen targets like she’s hunting them for sport. It gives her some place to put her energy.

 

And she needs some place to put her energy. When she hasn’t got something specific to do with it, it comes out in weird ways. Like crying.

 

She’s cries a few times -- in the kitchen, in the shower, in her bed, before she finally decides to be done with it.

 

Being done with it is mostly about crying more, rather than less, just one time. One time, in the fresher, in the shower, it strikes her like a bolt that Thrawn hasn’t commed her. He hasn’t even tried. She’d been so mad at first that she hadn’t noticed. And then she’d thought, maybe he was just giving her space. But it strikes all at once that it’s been too long for that. He hasn’t even  _ tried.  _ She leans against the wall and hiccups in the steam and lets the sadness come up inside her, like a plant unfurling from a crack in concrete. She hugs herself and sinks down down to the floor of the shower stall and lets her grief well up and lets herself think:  _ hasn’t anyone ever loved me? _

 

When she’s done crying, when she’s cried it all out, she picks herself. Picking herself up is like digging into the cracked, dry earth with a clawed hand and grabbing the now dessicated plant of her sorrows by its roots, and ripping it out. 

 

When she’s done, all that’s left inside of her is rock and dust.

 

~*~

 

Thrawn runs a lot more bridge simulations than Eli thinks are really necessary, but he holds his tongue about it. In a way, it’s better than everything else he’s doing.

 

“Everything else” is, well, absolutely everything. Thrawn’s taken to micromanaging to the point where even Hammerly is starting to flinch when she sees him come round to her station.

 

When he’s not hovering over his crew, interrogating their every passing thought and demonstrating --  _ demonstrating,  _ helpfully of course, or just  _ suggesting  _ \-- better ways of doing things, which is definitely slowly driving everyone on the Thunder Wasp absolutely kriffing nuts, he sets himself up at his workstation and dives into the Nightswan investigation. This, too, means work for Eli, because Eli has not become the go-between for Thrawn and Yularen. He’s learning a lot, and it gives him the first tangible hope for his future career that he’s had in a while.

 

It’s also a study in contrast. Yularen is very good at his job, and cares about it a great deal, and works much longer hours than the average desk jockey. Nevertheless, he knows where the boundary is between work and life, and he steps across it with discipline and purpose when it’s appropriate: hangs up his hat, turns off his workstation, goes home. Eli thinks it’s an important skill to have, and he’s a little bit glad to have someone who’s almost becoming a mentor demonstrate it in such a concrete and practical way.

 

Thrawn, on the other hand, immerses himself in work with a pathological intensity, to the point where Eli has said  _ Goodnight, sir,  _ and walked out of Thrawn’s office without waiting to be dismissed more than once. Thrawn has, at best, grunted or hummed in reply.

 

Eli thinks this behavior has “bad breakup” written all over it.

 

And Eli feels not one single jot of sympathy.

 

~*~

 

Arihnda spends a great deal of time staring into mirrors. 

 

She’s not looking at herself with any real sense of connection, or out of vanity, or even out of interest.

 

She’s teaching herself how to be a person again.

 

It’s a skill she has to re-learn slowly, piece by piece, through tremendous force of will. How to smile. How to laugh and make it sound natural and happen on cue. How to coerce her features into transmitting something other than fiery, bitter, seething rage.

 

She teaches herself how to imitate sociability, something that had once felt natural, one fake expression at a time.

 

~*~

 

This -- whatever this is, this breakup -- is worse for Juahir than it had been after Ascension Week. 

 

It’s one thing for your best friend to drop you from their life, no explanations given, when you don’t live together.

 

It’s something else entirely to feel like you’re living with a ghost.

 

So Juahir throws herself into her day-to-day work, and throws herself twice as hard into her below-board work, and tries not to notice or think about Arihnda at all. In time, it works. She might as well be living in the apartment alone, and she’s no more aware of whatever Arihnda’s doing than she would be aware of her day-to-day activities if she were dead and buried.

 

~*~

 

Working with Yularen helps Arihnda a great deal.

 

He treats her very well, and while she knows that’s probably in part down to damage control, she likes to think he genuinely finds her intelligent, and capable. They meet a couple of times a week, and he treats her like she’s worth something, like she brings something valuable to the table. Those conversations are about the only things she left she truly enjoys.

 

And he never mentions Thrawn. 

 

And it’s probably that, more than anything, the silence around him, the fact that Yularen never defends him, and never makes excuses, and never asks Arihnda to tread lightly, never brings it up  _ at all  _ that lets her cool off enough to do what she finally does the day she speaks with Tarkin.

 

She tries not to look deeply into the fact that she  _ wants  _ to cool off. To make the sensation palatable, she tells herself that the whole ugly, messy business is at least worth something if it benefited everyone involved in a practical way. And maybe he’ll be useful to her in the future. She wants  _ something  _ to be worth the -- worth everything that she’s been through.

 

As it happens, seeing Juahir hauled away is, in the end, a little more painful than satisfying. Arihnda’’s humiliated by herself, by the sudden need to ask, to know --  _ were you ever my friend?  _ And the bitter taunts and posturing she flings at Juahir afterward don’t really make her feel better.

 

But she has her title. And she has good contacts, including Thrawn, no matter how she got them. That will make it all worthwhile, she tells herself.

 

~*~

 

Juahir gives Yularen everything. 

 

There’s no torture, no serums, no straps and tables and droids: she starts talking right away. When she demonstrates an immediate willingness to be cooperative and tractable, Yularen has some water brought for her, and has an aide with a data pad pull up a file to check her answers against, and sits down with her at a cold metal table in a cold, bleak room. He talks to her for the rest of the day. It’s a stressful, unhappy conversation, but under the circumstances, it’s probably as pleasant as can be hoped.

 

Some fighters learn how to take pain. Juahir Madras learned how to assess when a situation was or wasn’t winnable. And she knows she’s beaten. She taps out. She doesn’t know enough beyond her immediate activities to feel really guilty about the information she shares; she’s pretty sure most of it won’t make much of a dent. It’s probably going to be out of date by the tomorrow morning, anyway.

 

At the end, she asks if she can, please, actually write to Arihnda.

 

She wants -- she’d asked a stupid question when she was arrested, and she wants to ask a smarter one. She does vaguely hope that Arihnda might, possibly, be moved to help her someday, but mostly she just wants to know what happened. She wants to know how long Arihnda knew, how she planned it, and if she, Juahir, is right about where she suddenly thinks she knows that guy’s voice from.

 

She’s been beaten, and with nothing left in foreseeable future to occupy her time, she just sort of wants to know how.

 

The way Yularen says “we’ll check what you’ve told us, and then we’ll see” tells her that she’s never going to find out. As the door closes behind her, Juahir Madras stares at a blank tile wall and realizes that it’s she, not Arihnda, who will live as a ghost.

 

~*~

 

Eli’s… He is… he’s flabbergasted, gobsmacked, bowled over, on cloud nine, ecstatic, over every kriffing moon you can name --

 

And then Tarkin,  _ Tarkin, a Grand Moff, he’s chatting with them,  _ Tarkin mentions Pryce. Eli’s stomach drops. Everything comes with a cost. He knows he deserves his promotion, more than deserves it, but he suddenly feels a little squirrely about the thing that paid for it. Unintentionally, maybe, but still --

 

Beside him, Thrawn is saying “I am glad things have worked out for her” in a tone that makes Eli want to throw up in his mouth a little. Tarkin probably doesn’t hear the layers, but Eli knows Thrawn is thinking about the comm on his desk. 

 

Eli knows Thrawn is thinking about the call that never comes. 

 

Eli tries to shut out the rest of the conversation. Thrawn has to get Eli’s attention, break his reverie, when it’s time for them to go to the Chimaera.

 

_ ISD Chimaera _ , Eli thinks, bringing his mind back to a happier place. Eli’s a Lieutenant Commander on an Imperial Star Destroyer. 

 

When he gets a free minute, he sends Pryce a note. He tries to keep it short, but grateful. He doesn’t want intrude, but he wants her to know -- something, he doesn’t know what exactly. She might not want to hear from any of them again for the rest of her life, but he doesn’t want to just drop her, after everything. He thinks that would be by far the rudest thing. 

 

So he sends her a note:  _ Heard from Tarkin, great news. Let me know if I can help with anything. And thanks. _

 

~*~

 

Thrawn brings a renewed and, he admits to himself, almost happy vigor to taking the Chimaera in hand. He finds Faro has run a fine ship, and is professional in assisting with the transition in leadership. He replaces the few problem personnel with staff from the Thunder Wasp, including Hammerly, who has grown in her role tremendously. He assigns Vanto a great deal of responsibility, and is pleased to see him rise to the occasion. Overall, he enjoys the work very much, and he enjoys his new rank as well. 

 

And he knows who secured both.

 

He reads a great deal into that. Sometimes, he will find his attention wandering to his comm, and he will think:  _ I know you’re there. _

 

Sometimes his attention wanders to his comm, and he doesn’t think at all.

 

~*~

 

Early on, long enough after everything not to be aching like an open wound but soon enough that she’s still flush with the satisfaction of her promotion, Arihnda tries to date again. Sort of. It’s not really dating, but -- but on Coruscant, everyone wants to get into bed with power, and suddenly she has some.

 

She lets herself get picked up a few times, at high-society events where she is now, finally, one of the high members of society.

 

High enough that people come sniffing around, anyway.

 

They go poorly, every one.

 

Her partners are fine -- fine people, they treat her well enough, or try to, for the most part. But she can’t bring herself to enjoy anything more than the idea of what they want, and she shuts down sooner or later every time. Sometimes before anything happens, sometimes after, sometimes right in the middle. She disconnects. Disengages. Talks to the ceiling or the wall or a table when she tells the failure of the night to leave.

 

One time one of them doesn’t want to. 

 

“I am an Imperial Governor,” she hisses at him, her face an inch from his, his body pressing her into the wall of her apartment. “And if you don’t get out I’ll hit the panic button on my comm and the ISB will see you’re worked to death in Kessel.”

 

She holds his gaze while the doubt flickers over his face. She’s hardly breathing, her heart is beating wildly, but she’s gone toe-to-toe with Tarkin, she can do this -- she can do this --

 

She sees his bravado crumble, sees the threat get the better of him. He slumps, retreats, leaves. He says something cruel when he does but Arihnda’s only glad he’s gone.

 

She tests her panic button a few times after that, and then she has one installed on a little bracelet she starts wearing everywhere.

 

And she doesn’t invite else anyone back to her apartment.

 

~*~

 

Yularen is, in fact, a little surprised at what Arihnda manages to get from Tarkin, but on reflection, he doesn’t know why he should be. She’d shown brains and mettle both in his time working with her. He’s a little surprised, but mostly he’s pleased for her.

 

And he’s very pleased she kicked a little bit of a benefit towards Thrawn, as well. He’s finally able to relax on that front; if anything gives him confidence that she’s really not going to raise a stink about things, it’s that.

 

So he’s relieved, and pleased for her, and glad to see her doing well. She travels between Coruscant and Lothal a great deal, and he makes a point of keeping in touch. They have lunch whenever she’s on-world, and while she has a sharp, nasty quality to her whose origins he thinks he knows well, their visits are mostly pleasant.

 

And the things she does for Tarkin has a great deal of concordance with his own activities. They work together on several occasions.

 

As much as he respects her when they work together, he’s very glad, watching her slice Senators to shreds and cut Moffs off at the legs, watching her hand his agency traitors and idiots both trussed like slaughtered nuna, watching her  _ enjoy  _ her victories, that she’s decided to forgive Thrawn.

 

Or at least that she’s decided to carry on as if nothing had ever happened.

 

~*~

 

Arihnda is good at her job.

 

Which is just as well, since it’s really all she has.

 

She has lunch with Wullf sometimes, and he’s very nice, but the only times she comfortable anymore are when she’s working.

 

She leaves Azadi’s office --  _ her  _ office -- as blank as her apartment; takes a pied-a-terre in 500 Republica for all the normal social reasons; terrorizes her slack, lazy, semi-competent staff into acceptable condition; and buries herself so deep in her work she almost ceases to exists outside it.

 

And then Minister Tua brings the Navy’s Outer Rim expansion to her attention.

 

~*~

 

Thrawn sees Eli masking tense disapproval very well when he brings a personal message in one morning, so at first Thrawn wonders if the news might be bad in some way.

 

Instead, he finds himself smiling when he reads it.

 

“Thank you, Vanto,” he says. “I will attend to this matter personally.”

 

~*~

 

She’s not sure, really, if it was the best move -- she could have talked to Yularen, too, but Thrawn is in the Navy, well-respected, with the ear, she thinks, of the High Command, and --

 

And it’s a good way to test, she tells herself, if he’s as worthwhile a contact, as conveniently in her pocket, as she thinks. That’s a justifiable reason for reaching out to him.

 

Still, she did make the presentation meticulously honest. No slants. No spins.

 

She absolutely does not let herself think that she because she cares about his opinion.

 

~*~

 

He sequesters himself for a day and a half with her presentations, her policy document, her concise and well-crafted application. When he is finished writing his recommendation, which he phrases in neutral and professional terms, he sends it personally to the admiralty, with an additional offering his personal support, admiration, and recommendation for the Governor of Lothal’s proposed project.

 

And, on the justification to himself that she has reached out to him, and feeling quite pleased with himself, he comms her directly. 

 

~*~

 

He comms her directly. He comms her and -- and she hasn’t heard his voice, not once, not one time since --

 

She’s abrupt and curt with him, even when he says he’s written his own memo in support of her proposal, and she cuts their conversation off curtly, abruptly, at the end, too.

 

She hasn’t heard his voice -- 

 

Amid the rocks and dust within her, something stirs. 

 

~*~

 

Thrawn sits with the silent comm a long time after the call.

 

He supposes he is not surprised, exactly. 

 

He has left the offer of further assistance open to her. He wonders if she will take him up on it, eventually.

 

~*~

 

Her little maneuver with Renking is immensely satisfying. There’s something she truly enjoys about watching people trip over their own feet: all she has to do is lay out the right idea, and watch the predictable response. She feels a bitter, grim, venomous satisfaction when he’s hauled away. And Yularen is appropriately complimentary of her work, as he always is.

 

And it's very good to have won her bid for hosting expanded Naval facilities in the Outer Rim.

 

But there’s a bitterness to her victory, or a strain, that’s more than she would like. Talking to Yularen is fine, but --

 

But there's a voice in her head. A whisper that won't go away. 

 

Someone she wishes she could share this with.

 

She wrestles with herself for a long, long time before deciding how she’s going to try and alleviate her problem.

 

~*~

 

She comms him, directly. And once again, he decides that if she is reaching out to him, he within his rights to speak to her.

 

She is curt and abrupt again, but she gives him her address.

 

~*~

 

“Headed somewhere, sir?” Eli asks. 

 

“Out,” says Thrawn lightly. He looks like is holding in some private happiness, some close and secret excitement, almost like a child. “I should like to run simulation seventeen-besh twice tomorrow, with secondary crewers. Would you arrange it?”

 

Eli’s frowning. He says “Yes, sir,” automatically. Thrawn hardly leaves the Chimaera, ever, at all, except to go to the Arcology, and those meetings are all during daytime, and Eli’s the one who manages his schedule so he usually knows what’s happening. Thrawn has done anything like this since --

 

_ Kriff,  _ Eli thinks as the penny drops.

 

Only  _ kriff  _ doesn’t quite cut it.

 

~*~

 

“Well, she says, standing in the door and not moving. Logically she knows she needs to move to the side to let him in, but she isn’t really -- now that he’s here, she isn’t really ready for that.

 

Now that she’s here, she doesn’t really know what she wants.

 

Then again, she’s very good at improvisation.

 

She steps aside. 

 

“Come in.”

 

~*~

 

Thrawn was not precisely expecting radiant happiness, but his own mild surprise tells him he was expecting something a little less… dangerous.

 

She reminds him of a bed of coals.

 

He decides he will tread very carefully indeed.

 

~*~

 

Arihnda’s processing the events in parallel, on a number of tracks: the logistics of her space, because she always keeps an eye on her exits and is always ready with her little bracelet and her panic button, the political value they might trade, because her entire life is about weighing those scales these days, what he might want socially or personally, what she might be able or willing to provide --

 

Only, those calculations aren’t remotely the same with him as they are with anyone else.

 

There’s an emotional track she’s processing, too, and it’s so out of use and suddenly so overloaded she hardly knows how to keep any of her thoughts straight.

 

_ You walked into Tarkin’s office as no one and walked out an Imperial Governor,  _ she reminds herself. It’s her calming little mantra, the thing that always sets her back on her feet.

 

Instead, now, she just keeps buzzing, all over, inside and out. She doesn’t even know if the things she feeling have names.

 

~*~

 

She doesn’t speak to him as he enters, and when he stops in the middle of her sitting-room, a plain but appropriately appointed space, he turns to find she’s sort of followed him, and is staring at him intensely.

 

He weights the balance between waiting until she says something on the one hand, which might in fact take a very long time, and inciting her ire by speaking on the other.

 

She saves him the trouble.

 

~*~

 

“Seeing as Lothal is going to host the Navy’s expanded installations on the Outer Rim, I thought I’d ask the Navy for a little advice,” she says. It comes out sharper than she means, much less sociable, but it feels right. When she’s dancing on her toes, sometimes that’s how she finds her way. Like she had with Tarkin, and Ghadi. 

 

She wishes suddenly, intensely, she were able not to think of Thrawn as being of a piece with them. It’s almost more a physical sensation than a thought: a blend of deep anguish and sudden, powerful carnal desire that almost makes her legs weak.

 

She covers by turning suddenly on her heel and heading to a sideboard that doubles as a bar.

 

“Something to drink?” she asks brusquely without looking at him. “Brandy? I have Corellian and Savereen. Or Corellian Whiskey. I also have an Alderaanian red, if you prefer wine --”

 

“I will have whatever you are having,” he says from his place in the middle of the room, and his voice makes an emotion that  _ shouldn’t  _ have a name bloom inside her chest so forcefully that for a second there’s a tremor in her hands and she almost drops the glass she’s holding.

 

She takes a steadying breath, and then says: “Whiskey, then.”

 

~*~

 

There’s a strain in her voice when she says  _ whiskey _ , and he’s displeased, although not surprised, to discover that it hurts a great deal to hear. 

 

Nevertheless, he has the sense to stay where he is.

 

~*~

 

She does, in fact, manage to pour two glasses of whiskey and bring them to him without dropping either glass, or losing the tenuous thread of her composure. But when he takes the glass his hand brushes hers, and he holds her gaze with such intensity -- she turns aside very fast and, clearing her throat, walks directly to the couch that’s furthest from him.

 

While she walks, she says: “I appreciate your recommending my proposal to the High Command, Admiral. And, obviously, I should congratulate you on being promoted. Again.”

 

~*~

 

_ Should  _ does not include any apparent intention of actually doing so, he thinks, turning slowly to look at her as she settles on the far couch. Opting again for caution, he sits on the couch that is nearest him, which puts the two of them on opposite sides of the room.

 

“As I should thank you for the role you played in my being assigned the Thunder Wasp,” he says, in a polite tone.

 

She looks away from him, at a wall. “Yes,” she says. “Well.” She takes a sip of her drink, sharply and fast. Then she looks back at him. “I’d like to ask you some questions about the installations, if you don’t mind.”

 

“Of course,” he says.

 

There’s another long pause. She looks down at her lap, into the glass she’s holding, for a long minute before taking another rather aggressive gulp from it. Then, slowly, she starts talking.

 

~*~

 

She’s making up her questions on the fly. It’s not her best work. She’s not really listening to the answers either. She’s too -- she misses him. That’s the terrible thing she’s feeling. She misses him terribly, misses him horribly, wishes with every raw nerve in her blood-soaked body that he hadn’t -- wishes things were different, so she could be on the couch beside him, could touch him and be touched by him, could  _ talk  _ to him --

 

~*~

 

He thinks she is inventing her questions as she goes. Some of them are intelligent, some of them are… not. He is patient with all of them. He does not think she is really listening to his answers, but he is not really interested in anything he’s saying, either. 

 

He is watching her face.

 

She avoids looking at him, drinks her whiskey in sharp, desperate gulps, and refills her glass twice as they speak.

 

But while his memory of her is that she does not drink much, he does not think the high color bleeding into her cheeks is entirely, or even primarily, from alcohol.

 

She covers her hurt with anger, but the hurt is there. So is sorrow, and loneliness, and an achingly fragile thing, like confusion, that makes his heart strike a blow in his chest so painful he almost presses a hand to his chest. 

 

He recognizes, because he is not stupid, that what he is seeing is own work. But looking at her, the only thought he permits himself is:  _ I can fix these things. Give me an opening to act, and I can fix these things for you.  _

 

~*~

 

She simply lapses into silence, at a certain point. She is sitting a little slumped on the couch, staring down into her glass. She doesn’t usually drink much. She hasn’t had enough to be  _ drunk  _ but she has enough to feel a little -- to feel a little loose, like her feelings are very close to the surface. Which, given how intense the feelings she’s having are, might be a little dangerous.

 

But she’s had just enough to drink that she doesn’t really care.

 

~*~

 

She doesn’t show any sign of having anything else to say, but she doesn’t show any signal that she feels the evening is over, either.

 

After watching her for a few minutes, he thinks perhaps he will try to make an opening for himself.

 

Very softly, he says: “Arihnda.”

 

~*~

 

She has gone somewhere so deep inside herself, into her sad longings and her memories, that his actual presence has become an abstraction. She doesn’t hear him speaking, not completely, until he repeats her name. 

 

Her head snaps up. She is, suddenly, full of rage.

 

~*~

 

The look on her face is only good in the sense that if she is feeling any passions at all, perhaps there are other passions they can work their way around to.

 

“It’s  _ Governor  _ to you, I think,” she snarls at him.

 

He lets that hang before saying, very politely: “Of course. Forgive me, Governor.”

 

~*~

 

He holds her gaze steadily while snarls at him and while he replies.

 

Her anger fades as fast as it had come and she feels a lump in her throat and a question forming, and she looks away from him, at the wall.

 

~*~

 

He lets another beat of silence pass after she turns her face to the wall before saying: “Governor, if you have anything else you would like to ask me…”

 

~*~

 

Arihnda makes a weird choking sound, not really a bitter laugh, not really sob. She looks down into her glass again. She has so  _ many  _ questions, she doesn’t even know where to begin.

 

He waits in perfect silence, which she knows he can endure for a long, long time. Unlike most people, he feels no need to fill the space with empty noise.

 

She had so enjoyed that about him.

 

It had made their conversations feel more -- “I don’t suppose,” she says, voice twisted and slightly cracked, “that you’ll tell me if any of it was real?” Then she makes her weird choking sound again, and knocks the last of her drink back. “Stupid question,” she says, sagging back into the couch, still not looking at his face. “Don’t answer it.”

 

~*~

 

After a long stretch of silence, and after considering his words very, very, carefully, he says: “It was quite real to me.”

 

~*~

 

Slowly, she looks up at him.

 

He has the serious, intent look she had always interpreted as sincerity.

 

Suddenly her whole body is aching. A dull, anguished ache all over. Aching to be held, aching to be touched.

 

She wants to feel good again. She wants her body to feel good again.

 

He had always, whenever he touched her, made her body feel  _ so  _ good.

 

“Should I tell you where the bedroom is?” she says. The words flow out of her mouth without, seemingly, any intervention or even input from her brain. Her voice is low and rough.

 

His eyebrows lift. He says: “If you wish.”

 

~*~

 

Every moment feels suspended, like breath. She is looking at him with raw, carnivorous hunger. Her mouth is open, her eyes are bright. 

 

“Very much, yes,” she says, in a rough voice that is half air.

 

He does not make any move. He is not sure which of them is hunter, and which is prey, but in either direction, he is sure that too sudden a start will make them both scatter.

 

~*~

 

He seems to be waiting for her, so before she can talk herself out of it, as if she is trying to outrun her own good sense, she pushes herself to her feet and snaps “Follow me.”

 

~*~

 

He is, by this point, he admits, almost more curious about what this will be like than anything else. She is quite different than he has ever seen her before -- but she has asked for him. She seems, still to need him. And that means there are possibilities, for the future.

 

He is very curious what it is she wants of him. The particulars, not the generalities. The latter is obvious.

 

He is curious what, specifically, she will require. And he is, really, quite eager to provide.

 

Eager, he admits to himself, to repair things.

 

Eager to have her back.

 

His body is eager for hers, too.

 

~*~

 

She doesn’t look at him when they enter her bedroom. She keeps her back to him, and looks at the walls, and the ceiling, as she starts undoing her uniform.

 

All she ever wears anymore is her uniform.

 

“You can see the bed,” she says. “Get on it. Undress first.”

 

~*~

 

As he undresses, very matter-of-factly, efficiently and with economy of motion as if in his own cabin, he watches her. 

 

Her posture and her motions are, somehow, brittle. Jagged.

 

He considers crossing the room to her, wrapping his arms around her, kissing the side of her face, the side of her neck. 

 

Likely she would only kick him out. Better, he decides, to give her what she has expressly asked for.

 

He strips off his boxers, and climbs onto her bed.

 

~*~

 

When she’s naked except for her underthings, she almost changes her mind.

 

~*~

 

She stands for a long minute hugging herself, her head bowed, before she turns to look at him. In that minute, his arousal more or less disappears entirely.

 

~*~

 

Her first thought when she turns around is that he looks so good,  _ so  _ good, and she’s missed seeing him in her bed  _ so  _ much.

 

Her second thought is that she should make him leave.

 

Then she notices that his cock is… barely there. Just the tip is poking out of his body.

 

She has a lot of things she could do, or say, in response to that. Logically, she knows the mood isn’t really conducive. She has her memories of what he responds well to, and this sort of scene isn’t really it -- and then she gets angry at him. She sets her mouth in a hard line.

 

“Get it out for me,” she says.

 

He raises his eyebrows quite high. “Forgive me, Governor?”

 

“You heard me. Get it out.”

 

His eyebrows are still raised. “It?”

 

“You know exactly what I kriffing mean. Or you can leave, it’s up to you.”

 

For a minute, she thinks he’s going to leave.

 

Then, very slowly, he reaches down to his cock.

 

~*~

 

It really does take him a minute to make up his mind. He’s not certain he enjoys the… tone… of all of this.

 

But perhaps she is owed a few chances to set a somewhat more difficult tone, after everything.

 

And the way she watches him touch himself, bright eyes wide and hungry, her pink tongue licking parted lips at regular intervals, her hands reaching slowly to touch her own breasts, isn’t objectionable in the least.

 

When he is finally completely hard, she keeps staring.

 

~*~

 

His hand slows, and then stops, but he is still holding himself.

 

They’ve never done this before. She’s never watched this before.

 

She finds she likes it a great deal.

 

Between her legs she is starting to feel -- to feel  _ very,  _ very good. Very good, for the first time in a long time. 

 

She keeps staring at his hand on his cock, and licks her lips again.

 

~*~

 

In spite of the tone she’s set, or the tone she is trying to set, the way she’s staring makes him very pleased indeed.

 

After a short minute of her silent staring, he says, tone almost a little teasing: “Should I continue, Governor?”

 

She does not even look up at his face.

 

Instead, blinking a little, licking her lips yet again, she says, in a breathy, husky, voice: “Yes. I think you’d better.”

 

~*~

 

She can’t remember, actually, the last time she was so aroused just by looking at anything, not even him. Maybe it’s the heightened tension of the moment that makes her over-react, she doesn’t know. 

 

She doesn’t care, either.

 

What she does know is that her arousal builds up and up in intensity until it reaches a pitch that drowns out all her other feelings, that makes her feel practically dizzy and half-insane, which is a great deal better than the way she’s been feeling most of the time.

 

She’s so aroused watching him that she feels almost like she’s going to cum standing alone in the middle of the room. She’s staring, and aching, and breathing in shallow little puffs, and she feels almost dizzy from how much she wants him.

 

Then he says again: “Should I continue? Governor?”

 

“Shut up,” she says. She starts towards the bed, realizes she has to take her underthings off, almost trips over herself trying to do both things at the same time. She feels her underthings are almost soaking wet as she peels them away from her labia. Stumbling a little, she yanks the practical, dark cotton minishorts down her legs and hurls them away. She is still looking at his cock, his midriff, his thighs, his hand.

 

His cock.

 

~*~

 

She practically swats his hand out of the way when she gets on the bed. 

 

She’s still graceless climbing on top of him, but he gives her points for enthusiasm. And he is thrilled, warmly, all over, by the pressure of her hand in the center of his chest, and by the sight of her other hand dipping between her legs, hunting for his cock.

 

It’s all very good, he thinks. It all bodes well for the future. He would like if she would look at his face, though, he thinks. 

 

He reaches for her, unselfconsciously, to help her balance, and also just to touch her.

 

She freezes, and then she does swat at his hands, viciously. And she does look at his face. And he is not sure is happy about that, after all.

 

“You don’t touch me,” she hisses.

 

His hands are hovering in the air, where she’s shoved them. He considers objecting. He considers the expression on her face.

 

He says: “As you wish, Governor,” and lowers his hands to the mattress, well clear of her legs.

 

~*~

 

Arihnda holds his gaze only long enough to see that he complies. Then she drops her head, and tries to recover her excitement. She takes a few breaths. She doesn’t really get it back.

 

But she tells herself she’ll feel good again when he’s inside her.

 

He always feels so  _ good  _ inside her.

 

~*~

 

There seems to be more determination than excitement in the way she lowers herself onto his cock. He doesn’t entirely like that.

 

But she feels so good around him, and there’s been no one else since here -- his eyes flutter closed for a minute, when she slips, slick and soft, around him. He can’t help it.

 

~*~

 

She gets reacquainted with the feel of him in stages: head, ridges, and then, finally, with steady determination, base.

 

But her excitement doesn’t entirely return.

 

The moment with his hands has broken the spell. There’s a kind of doublethink in her head, a kind of sadness that the good, good feeling of his cock inside her can’t dispel.

 

~*~

 

She moves slowly on his cock, settling fully onto him a little at a time, and she feels wonderful around him, but he can see the whispers of unhappiness about her. 

 

He has to twist his hands into the sheets to keep them off of her. 

 

~*~

 

When he’s fully inside of her, she sits back, shaking her head and straightening her shoulders. Her fingers trail along his torso and she realizes she’s missed that, too. Just the feel of his body under her hands. Just touching him.

 

She closes her eyes and puts her hands on her thighs before she starts to move, rocking her hips forward and back.

 

~*~

 

She works with determination, as if he weren’t there.

 

He watches her, feels her, grips the sheets.

 

He restrains himself for a long time, while she twists and rocks against him, until the look on her face has dissolved to almost pure frustration, and the sounds she’s making become equally as unhappy.

 

~*~

 

He does feel good inside her. He does.

 

But she can’t cum. She’s never cum on top, and she hasn’t magically developed a new ability. And the more she rocks against him, the worse it is.

 

She puts her hands on his chest, and leans her weight into him. Her eyes are still closed. Her shoulders are tense and hunched, and her head is hanging low. She grinds her hips, and whines. She wants  _ so much  _ to cum, which she hasn’t done in so long --

 

Then there’s a hand on her hip, and a soft voice. 

 

“Arihnda.”

 

~*~

 

She freezes when he touches her, but she doesn’t flinch away or snap at him.

 

He pushes himself up with one hand, his chest rising under the pressure of her hands, and her elbows give a little. 

 

“Arinda,” he says again. Still no objection. He moves his hand from her hip to her face, and while her eyes stay closed and her brows are knit, she doesn’t object. She whines, in fact, in a way that he remembers well. “Arihnda,” he whispers. “Let me help.”

 

Another whine, half protest. His hand slips around the back of her neck and he tugs at at her gently.

 

“Arihnda. Come here. Let me help.”

 

~*~

 

She very nearly doesn’t. She is so -- not angry with him. She is angry, but what she feels for him is much worse.

 

What she feels for him encompasses, among many things, a deep ache to be close. To be close, in spite of everything. And to feel good again.

 

She she lets him pull her down, until she is lying atop him, flush against his chest.

 

And it feels almost better to be held than it does feel his cock move.

 

~*~

 

He holds her close, carefully, like a precious thing, and moves in the way he remembers her enjoying: moves and moves and whispers her name until she stiffens and cries out and trembles.

 

He goes on holding her, after that, rubbing the small of her back, and whispering her name, and breathing in the scent of her skin, the smell of her soap, the spice of her perfume.

 

The hammer in his chest strikes a deep, aching blow.

 

He has missed her, terribly.

 

~*~

 

She doesn’t really have a sense of how long they lay together. She only knows it is long enough that her focus wanders back from the good feeling her body -- the relief of it -- to the ache in her heart, and she says, roughly: “Let me go.”

 

He tries to stay with her, to roll onto his side beside her, when she rolls off of him, but she closes her eyes resolutely and says: “I want you to leave.”

 

For a long minute, he doesn’t. Then he says “Arihnda --” and she says again, louder: “ _ I want you to leave.” _

 

There is another long, reluctant moment before he rises from the bed. She hears him dressing, and then hears him leaving, and she keeps her eyes shut tight.

 

Just when he sounds like he is near the door, his footsteps stop. And then he says: “If there is ever anything you require, Governor, I hope you will not hesitate to call me.”

 

Arihnda does not burst into tears, but it is a very near thing.

 

Instead, she swallows hard, and then says viciously: “I told you to get out.”

 

~*~

 

Eli doesn’t know exactly what’s happened, but he knows almost as soon gets back aboard ship that it was bad. What Eli really wants to say is  _ I could have told you so.  _ Or  _ What did you expect?  _ Or maybe  _ You should have left her alone, you fucking ass. _

 

But sometimes Eli sees Thrawn staring at the comm on his desk with a look on his face that makes Eli, in spite of what he knows, feel a twinge of pity. 

 

~*~

 

Arihnda passes through another stage of pain. 

 

She tries to rip out all the little shoots that are growing up from the dusty earth inside herself, but there are too many. They come in too fast. They spring from idle thoughts and longings and dreams, from the pulses of desire that flash through her at odd intervals.

 

And she decides that what she can not cure with avoidance, maybe she will treat with careful and controlled exposure.

 

~*~

 

She doesn’t comm him. She sends a note. It is extremely to the point: date, time, place.

 

He almost does not go.

 

But, he tells himself, if she is willing to see him, it is within her rights to set the terms. And it his obligation to abide by them.

 

And he wants to be near her.

 

~*~

 

Arihnda thinks for a long time, in advance, about how she wants to handle him. And in her estimation, her plan works much better than their previous encounter.

 

It’s just a variation on a theme, really, but this time she feels in control.

 

~*~

 

There is no pretense of discussion when she greets him. She opens the door and looks him up and down and says “You know where the bedroom is.”

 

~*~

 

She directs most of what happens. They go to her bedroom. She tells him not to talk. She watches him make himself hard. She watches him touch himself until she’s aching between her legs, and then she tells him to get his hands out of the way, and then she climbs on top.

 

Only this time, she takes her time.

 

~*~

 

He reaches for her waist at a certain point, and she smacks his hand away. “Don’t touch,” she says in a low voice. She certain.

 

And she doesn’t seem to be struggling. She makes no sounds of effort or distress, nor anything in her body language to indicate either.

 

She seems simply to be enjoying herself. Using him, and enjoying herself, with no other end in sight.

 

It is new.

 

It is different.

 

He is mesmerized.

 

~*~

 

She doesn’t cum, but she’d decided with herself in advance that wasn’t her goal.

 

He doesn’t cum either, which she thinks is appropriate.

 

She straddles him and moves on him and around him until she decides she feels good enough, has had his cock inside her for long enough, and then she pulls herself off of him and says “Alright, that’s enough. You can go. Finish yourself in the bathroom if you have to, but leave.”

 

~*~

 

Thrawn considers his options.

 

He chooses the one he thinks will get him invited back quickest.

 

“Of course, Governor,” he says smoothly. 

 

~*~

 

She waits a couple days before she invites him back again.

 

But she she feels a little less anxious about it, this time.

 

~*~

 

Thrawn feels very confident that he knows what to expect, and he is proven correct. She doesn’t speak to him, or let him speak, except in the minimum degree. He is not permitted to touch her. Neither of them orgasms.

 

But she does move with a little more vigor, towards the end, and she sends him away with a little less sharpness.

 

And Thrawn behaves exactly as requested.

 

It’s very easy, in fact, to let her make all the decisions. All he has to do is show her, through patience, that he is reliable. All he has to do, really, is prove through obedience that she might no be wrong to trust him again.

 

~*~

 

She makes it a habit. It becomes a nightly engagement whenever they are both on Coruscant. 

 

He is very, she finds, very tractable. Very willing. Little by little, she starts to feel comfortable around him again -- although not comfortable enough to let him touch her, or to let him stay, or to have a conversation.

 

But she starts to look forward, in a very genuine and uncomplicated way, to seeing him. And she starts to enjoy his company without distracting twinges of pain. 

 

There are a several false starts. Once, while she is almost completely lost in her own enjoyment, using the ridges on his cock to edge herself towards something that might, she hopes, she so hopes, please, be an orgasm, he groans loudly and bucks his hips up into her and cums. Her eyes fly open and she stares at him, and finds his eyes closed, and she says  _ what the kriff,  _ and he opens his eyes. He’s panting and he’s looking at her with such… like he thinks something lovely has just happened between the two of them, which is maddening when she was so close and hasn’t cum at all. The disconnect makes her so furious that shoves her hand against his face, fingers splayed, and pushes his head back into the mattress and says: “ _ Don’t ever do that again.” _ Then she swings off of him and storms into the fresher and doesn’t come out for an hour.

 

She doesn’t do much in there except shower for a long time, and breathe through a fit of rage so intense she thinks she might kill him if she leaves the room without calming down. The thing that lets her work her way back from pure fury is reminding herself they hadn’t discussed it. They haven’t, in fact, discussed anything.

 

When she comes out of the fresher, he’s still there, sitting in a chair, naked, and clearly waiting for her. He lets her choose the first word. She says: “I don’t want you to cum inside me again.”

 

He says: “Understood, Governor.” And then he waits, apparently, for her to decide what she wants next.

 

She takes a minute to decide what to say, and finally settles on: “I’d like you to come back tomorrow, same time.”

 

He raises an eyebrow and says “Of course.”

 

He is very good about following the new rule she’s made.

 

And, eventually, she does start to cum from being on top.

 

~*~

 

The first time she cums on top of him under her own power, he almost forgets himself.

 

She is leaning heavily on his chest, and her head is hanging low, and she’s panting, sweating, moaning, her body is flushed with arousal and athletic vigor both, and she grinding her hips against his relentlessly, and he thinks she’s beautiful. He keeps his hands twisted in the sheets. She grinds and grinds and grinds and then, almost suddenly, she tenses, and makes a sound like victory. Her cunt spasms around him, and for a second he thinks if he doesn’t touch her he’ll lose his mind.

 

The thought only lasts a second, but its echo lingers.

 

She stays braced against his chest, gasping, for a minute, and he wonders what the cost would be if he said her name aloud -- would she look at him -- would she let him touch her and pull her closer -- 

 

Then, panting, she pulls herself up the length of his cock, and he almost grabs her waist to guide her back down again, he is so close, she would only have to slide along him a couple of times --

 

And she pulls herself off of him, and collapses onto the bed beside him. She is still breathing heavily. He almost gets up to go to the fresher and finish of his own accord, but he wonders --

 

“Shall I go, then, Governor?”

 

“Mm,” she says, eyes still closed. “Mm, can you give me a minute? I’d like to go again, if you’re up to it.”

 

For a second, he thinks his heart is going to beat its way out of his ribs.

 

He says: “Of course.” Then he considers the state his cock is in. He’d last better, he thinks, by ejaculating and then waiting a few minutes for a second erection. So then he says, carefully: “But I think I may need a few minutes myself.”

 

Her eyes open, she stares at the ceiling, she frowns. 

 

He clarifies: “Unless you would like me to cum inside you, after all.”

 

She frowns a little deeper for a minute. Then she closes her eyes and says: “Alright. Do whatever it is you need to do, I suppose. Just let me know when you’re ready. And scoot over, I’d like some space.”

 

~*~ 

 

Cumming on top gets easier with practice. So does being close to him, afterwards. And a little at a time, she lets him touch her again.

 

Or rather, she makes him touch her again. 

 

Little by little, she starts using his hands. She puts them on her breasts, or on her waist. He does, actually, help her balance and move in ways that make it easier to cum, and her orgasms get better.

 

And then she takes his mouth back.

 

She’s watching him massage his cock, and she looks up at his face, and feels all at once how much she misses the feeling of his tongue on her clit. She says: “Do you like what we’re doing here?” Which isn’t as connected to what she was thinking as she thought it was, but it comes out of her mouth anyway.

 

His hand stops moving. He says: “Yes.”

 

“Would you do something else for me?” she says.

 

He pauses a second, but says: “Of course.”

 

“Lay flat on your back,” she says.

 

Sitting on his face is actually very uncomfortable, a kind of balancing act, but like riding his cock, it feels better, more like she’s in control, than getting on her back for him. And this, too, becomes part of their pattern.

 

And eventually, letting him use his mouth other places, letting him kiss her breasts, her neck, anywhere but her face and her hands, becomes part of their fucking again. And slowly, so does pressing their bodies closer together, although she is still, always, the one on top.

 

One night, after she cums, after she catches her breath, she slides herself slowly up his cock, to the head, as if she is going pull off, and then she pauses, and then she slides back down again. There is a little catch in his breath, and she does it again. She looks at his face. He is watching her intently, his breathing shallow. His hands are still twisted in the sheets; she hasn’t given him permission, yet, that night, to touch her. She slides up again, down again. Slowly, he licks his lips. She does it a little faster, and he groans. Then she leans forward, and touches his cheek. His whole body is very still. 

 

Softly, she says: “Will you do something for me?”

 

He licks his lips, then says: “Of course.”

 

She strokes the side of his cheek, once, and then says: “Close your eyes.”

 

She stays leaning over him for a minute after he does, and then settles back on his cock. “Keep your eyes closed,” she says. 

 

Then she takes his hands, one at a time, and holds them in her hands, fingers laced together. “Help me keep my balance,” she says.

 

“Yes,” he breathes. It’s low like a groan.

 

She squeezes his hands, and starts to ride him. His head goes back into the mattress, and he moans.

 

“Can you cum for me?” she asks.

 

He moans again, says something in his strange language, and then groans: “Yes, Arih -- Governor. Yes.”

 

She lets the little mistake with her name go. She rises and falls above him, feeling the head and the ridges of his cock inside her, watching his chest move with his breathing, listening to the small, guttural moans from the back of his throat. Watching the strain on his face. Watching his head press back into the mattress.

 

She holds his hands tight while he cums, and she whispers “Just like that.”

 

Little by little, she starts to feel safe having him as part of the rhythm of her life again.

 

So long as all they do is fuck, it’s fine. 

 

~*~ 

 

Thrawn goes over the matter in spare moments. 

 

They have settled into a kind of rhythm, and she shows no inclination to move beyond it. There are upticks in intimacy during sex from time to time; outside of sex, there is nothing. 

 

But he would still like everything else back, as well.

 

~*~

 

“Colonel,” she says. She sounds stressed, harried -- Yularen sits straighter. He has almost never heard her worried. Angry, yes. Mournful, too. But he’s never heard any emotion from her that is remotely a cousin of fear.

 

“Arihnda, is something the matter?”

 

“Y-- no, no, Colonel, but I’m just on my way into Coruscant Space Port and I’ve just heard from Governor Tarkin -- I trust you know what’s happening on Batonn?”

 

“Of course,” he says, frowning at her flickering holo. What’s that go to do --

 

“I have contacts there, in Creekpath, where the rebels are based, in fact, and I’d like to use them to help, if I can.”

 

Yularen raises his eyebrows. Tarkin’s been increasingly interested in handling rebel matters personally; he would be interested in this. Perhaps she’s looking to impress. “Help how, exactly?”

 

~*~

 

There are too many kriffing -- kriffing doesn’t quite cut it. There are to many  _ fucking  _ things going on today for this to be happening, too, Eli thinks when they walk into the ready-room that’s been converted at the last second to a conference room.

 

Faro’s clearly got no idea about who Pryce is or what makes it so goddamn awkward to be in a room with her and Thrawn and Yularen at the same time -- and neither, clearly, does the tag-along Yularen has with him, Field Ops Drone Number Six Thousand and Twenty-Five or whatever the fuck his name is, but then again, Pryce and Thrawn put on such a good show that Eli wonders if anyone would catch the tension if they didn’t already know the story.

 

Yularen doesn’t seem phased, either, which is how Eli knows for a fact that he has no idea that the two people talking obliquely through and across him have started fucking again.

 

Eli wonders, too, if Thrawn weren’t trying to hide that fact, if maybe he would he raise more of an objection, or even put his foot down, because it’s clear as a supernova that he thinks this is a dumb idea, and that he doesn’t like it.

 

Eli also thinks it’s a stupid plan. And a dangerous one.

 

But there are too many kriffing things going on today for Eli to do anything but grit his teeth, and keep moving right along.

 

~*~

 

It takes a great deal of Thrawn’s considerable willpower for him to navigate the meeting with any manners that remotely resemble politeness, and in the end it’s only talking mostly past Arihnda and directly to Yularen as much as possible that lets him really manage it.

 

There are a thousand other options, better options, banging away in his skull, but almost all of them start with  _ if.  _ If, if, if --  _ if you had only talked to me. _

 

_ If you were only talking to me. _

 

But if is a word that always comes to late, and can’t be heeded in the midst of action anyway.

 

~*~

 

Arihnda can’t be bothered to think about how Thrawn might feel about the situation, or if he feels at all. Evidently he’s irritated, but frankly she doesn’t care that much. She has her parents to worry about.

 

~*~

 

Yularen guesses from the way they interact that Thrawn has, in fact, stayed away from Pryce. But what’s done is done, and his trust in the man has never quite come back. And he knows there’s something off, something wrong, about how Thrawn is handling Nightswan. So once he gets the business with Pryce sorted, because he happens to be in the neighborhood anyway, he pulls Vanto aside and asks a couple questions.

 

~*~

 

Eli wonders if maybe Yularen would sound doubtful about Thrawn’s loyalty, about his character, if that blue bastard hadn’t been so kriffing shak-brained, and had just kept his dick in his pants, instead of putting it in Pryce.

 

Eli wonders if he’d feel so many doubts, if he hadn’t watched that disaster up close and in slow motion.

 

But there are too many fucking things going on. And what’s done is done.

 

~*~ 

 

Yularen gets the news about Gudry and Pryce -- both radio silent, both missing entirely -- while he’s watching Thrawn’s little chat with Neville Cyngi. He mentions it off-handedly once Thrawn’s persuaded him that all he’d been doing with Nightswan was offering him a chance to surrender.

 

And the way Thrawn reacts tells him he’d been wrong.

 

Thrawn hasn’t stayed away from Arihnda at all.

 

~*~

 

Arihnda’s comm keeps buzzing. It’s Thrawn, every time. He comms her, and she doesn’t answer. And then comms her again. And then again. And again.

 

~*~

 

Eli doesn’t know exactly what’s happened, but when Thrawn sweeps back onto the bridge, he looks like he’s in what Eli’s father always used to call  _ fine fucking form.  _

 

Yularen, trailing behind him, looks like a variation on a theme.

 

And Eli knows that Yularen knows. 

 

There are too many fucking things going on today, and they just keep fucking coming.

 

Then Thrawn starts assigning a special duty squadron.

 

~*~

 

“I’ll send some of my men from ground command,” Yularen says. He doesn’t want to waste more time on this. He’s got half a mind to relieve Thrawn on the spot and let Faro -- who is eminently capable -- take the conn.

 

“No,” says Thrawn, “I will take my own men, and when I return --”

 

“The day you outrank the bloody ISB you can make that call, Thrawn. Ground troops are already --”

 

“I can take a tac-team,” says Vanto. 

 

Yularen stares. Beside him, Thrawn also turns and stares.

 

Vanto looks as pissed as someone who’s just been told the’ll have to travel through six of Corellia’s seven hells, but also like he’s in no mood to be told no.

 

“You are required the bridge, Commander --” Thrawn begins.

 

“Hammerly can do my job just as well as I can,” says Eli. “And Pyrondi can cover her station.”

 

Yularen raises his eyebrows.

 

“Neville Cygni is in Creekpath,” says Thrawn.

 

“And he knows your face as well as mine, maybe better. He won’t see me through a helmet, anyway.” Then Vanto sighs, and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Sir. I’ll bring her back.”

 

Which is how Yularen knows that Vanto’s known all along.

 

~*~

 

In the shak-flood of fucking things that have been happening, Eli’s actually pretty relieved to have something straightforward to do. After the Sempre he’s not sure how he feels about Rebels, or the Empire, but he does know how he feels about finding a person who needs help and offering them a hand. 

 

And he’s happy to finally be able to do something for Pryce that alleviates the brick of guilt he’s been carrying around since that first awful meeting with Yularen about Higher Skies.

 

And, frankly, he’s pretty glad not to be in a room with Thrawn and Yularen.

 

They come across Pryce and two people Eli instantly knows to be her parents while they’re on the way to the address Yularen had given them. Eli hisses “ _ Pryce”  _ and she freezes -- freezes like the stormtroopers are there for her, to hunt her, not to help her, and while the rest of the tac-team fans out behind him looking for the ISB field agent who’s still missing, Eli fumbles at his helmet and rips it off as fast as he can. 

 

“Hey, it’s me. I’m here to --”

 

Her eyes go wide for a second, and then she tries to collect herself. Almost manages it. “Commander -- “ she starts.

 

And then a voice crackles over Eli’s comm, saying: “Gudry’s dead.”

 

Eli looks at Pryce, and she has a look on her face that Eli’s seen in field ops before. That he’s seen on people he’s arrested or killed before.

 

Then Eli says the thing that, in retrospect, he’s pretty sure saves his life.

 

Eli will replay it a lot in his head, later.

 

It goes like this:

 

The stormtrooper’s voice crackles on the comm. 

 

The storm trooper says “Gudry’s dead.” 

 

Eli looks at Pryce. 

 

Pryce looks at him like a wild Alderaandian deer caught in a floodlight. 

 

Then the horribly familiar look starts to come across her face -- it’s so complicated, so many little sub-expressions, but the gist of what’s starting to cloud her features is panic, fear, and violence. 

 

Acting entirely from gut instinct, Eli holds up his hands, his helmet dangling ridiculously from one, like he’s saying  _ don’t shoot,  _ and he says: “What did he do?”

 

~*~

 

When Vanto says  _ what did he do?  _ he sounds like he might actually care about the answer. It kicks the stalls motor of Arihnda’s mind and the whole things turns over and clunks to life, shuddering like it’s going to backfire. Of course she can explain it. Of course she can --

 

“He pulls a blaster on me -- he tried --”

 

“Alright,” says Vanto, cutting her off. “Alright, we’ll sort it out later. Are these your parents?”

 

~*~

 

On the trip back to the Chimaera, Eli turns the moment over and over in his mind. He knows she’d killed Gudry. He knows he would have killed him. It hadn’t ever occurred to him before, though he doesn’t know why, that she’s really, truly deadly. But he remembers how furious she’d been at her friends from Higher Skies, how much of that op had been personal revenge for her. 

 

And then he wonders how many people can go to a man like Tarkin, and… 

 

He watches her with her parents: she’s fussy and controlling, smothering and distant at the same time. There’s something uncomfortable familiar in that. 

 

It’s not his parents he’s reminded of.

 

And it strikes Eli that, maybe, she and Thrawn are sort of a matched set. That she’s just as deadly as he is, and that she doesn’t really need Eli’s pity, or Yularen’s protection.

 

Maybe he should just leave that mess alone, in the future.

 

~*~

 

Arihnda gets her parents settled, and then seeks out Yularen. 

 

She knows in an instant that he knows, and that he doesn’t approve.

 

But he doesn’t press the issue. 

 

And he says they’ll settle the matter of Gudry later -- pulling a blaster on Imperial Governor was obviously unforgivable, he's sorry he didn't pick someone more suitable. Arihnda’s not sure she believes him, and she's not sure he believes her, but it tables the issue.

 

And bit by bit, they settle into roles: he’s tapped into the Naval battle and coordinating with ground command, Arihnda’s taking information from him and funnelling it back to Coruscant. Tarkin’s commed them, and she’s delivering a play-by-play, like it’s a grav-ball game.

 

At the end, Tarkin says casually “Perhaps we have found a replacement for Sartan. We could certainly use the Seventh on Lothal, and we didn’t spend all that money on expanded facilities for nothing. Talk to him about it for me. Tell him what to expect.”

 

“Yes, Excellency,” she says.

 

~*~

 

Yularen’s watching her narrowly out of the corner of his eye when she finished her conversation with Tarkin. For a second, thinking no one is looking, she lets her exhaustion show through. She looks like a wrung-out oil rag. Yularen purses his lips firmly for a moment, then sighs.

 

He feels less like he’s made a decision, and more like he’s given in to something that isn’t worth fighting.

 

“Arihnda,” he says.

 

She snaps up.

 

“Yes, Colonel,” she says, coming towards him.

 

He waves a hand. “No -- nothing I need you to do. I was just -- you’ve done enough, today. I’m telling you to go get some rest.”

 

“Colonel --”

 

“No, Arihnda. Go. And don’t -- when he’s free, I’ll send Thrawn to you.” For a second, she blanches. Stiffens. She opens her mouth to speak, but he holds up a hand. “I’ll send him to you. I’m sure you have things to talk about.”

 

~*~

 

Thrawn would like to go to Arihnda, when things on the bridge wind down.

 

But likely Yularen might finally run out of patience with that. And Vanto is able to confirm for him that she is, physically, whole.

 

He needs to talk to Vanto anyway.

 

The conversation does not go as well as he wanted, but under the circumstances it goes much better than it might have. Thrawn accepts that as good enough.

 

And then Yularen tracks him down.

 

And Yularen sends him to Arihnda.

 

~*~

 

Arihnda’s lying on her bed, in the dark. There are low lights from the floorboards that give dim illumination. They never turn off on ship; she’s gotten as close to pitch black as she can.

 

He enters very quietly. His steps are hardly audible above the rush and snick of the door as it opens and closes. But she knows it’s him.

 

She doesn’t move, or look, or speak.

 

Then he says: “Colonel Yularen told me you had an important matter to discuss.”

 

She keeps her eyes closed. She sighs a little. Then she says, in a flat tone: “Fleet Admiral Sartan is retiring. Being retired, actually. He commands --”

 

“The Seventh Fleet.”

 

“Yes. You know where this is going?”

 

“I am to be placed in command, and the fleet is to be based on Lothal, taking advantage of the Navy’s newly expanded facilities in the region.”

 

She smiles in spite of herself. “That’s about it, yes.”

 

~*~

 

Thrawn stands in the dim room and looks at her, stretched out on the bed, for a long time, considering the options, before finally saying: “Might I join you?”

 

She tenses a little, frowns, but doesn’t sit up, or open her eyes. She says: “Don’t you have work to do?”

 

“It can keep, for a little while. I thought you might appreciate the company.”

 

She snorts at that, and is silent a long minute, but then the frown fades from her face and she says: “Alright. Yes. Come here.”

 

~*~

 

She hears him cross the room and she almost changes her mind.

 

~*~

 

She moves over just enough to let him settle on the bed beside her. He is on his back, looking at the ceiling. She is on her back, eyes still shut.

 

After another long stretch of silence, he says, mildly: “We will have to work together quite closely on Lothal, I believe.”

 

~*~

 

Arihnda sighs. “Yes. I’m sure we can --”

 

“It would be easier if we could talk to each other.”

 

There’s a flood of angry frustration inside Arihnda, and her face and eyes grow hot. “That would be easier if I didn’t always have to wonder what you were lying about,” she snaps. “Or what you’re playing me for.”

 

~*~

 

There’s a change in her breathing as she speaks: jagged hitches, rough edges. 

 

He knows better than to turn to her, and try and take her in his arms.

 

Likely she would only claw a portion of his face clean off for trying.

 

Instead, he considers the ceiling, and considers the fact that her distress is quite reasonable.

 

And he considers what options are available to him.

 

Then, slowly, he says: “If I were to offer you proof, would that satisfy?”

 

~*~

 

Arihnda frowns so deeply her brow almost aches. “Proof of what?”

 

“That you may trust me, completely.”

 

Impossibly, her frown deepens. “How do you intend that? Wear a holorecorder constantly all the time with a feed that I can access whenever I want?”

 

~*~

 

Thrawn’s lips twitch. It is a very  _ her  _ sort of solution. Then, carefully, he says: “I thought perhaps I might share something with you.” No answer. “Something meaningful,” he adds.

 

“I don’t -- your favorite color won’t really cut it, Thrawn.” She says it with a kind of sigh, a heavy tiredness, like she doesn’t have the energy to keep playing what feels like a very cruel game.

 

He turns onto his side, head propped on one hand, and lays a hand on her arm. “That was not what I had in mind,” he says.

 

Frowning, lips pursed and drawn down at the corners, she opens her eyes and peers at him skeptically. “What did you have in mind?”

 

“I am going to share something sensitive with you,” he says, “and have confidence in you to keep it safe. Will that alleviate, do you think, your mistrust?”

 

Arihnda’s mouth pulls down further at the corners, and she still looks skeptical. “Depends what it is,” she says.

 

He goes on watching her for a long time, considering alternatives, or backing out. She takes a sharp breath, and blinks very fast for a second, and says “Thrawn,” in a voice tight with frustration -- and straining beneath with something else. 

 

He touches her face.

 

“One week from now,” he says firmly, and he sees her gather herself, suspended, waiting. “One week from now,” he repeats, a little softer in tone, watching her face closely as she listens to him, “Lieutenant Commander Vanto will be reported absent without leave from the Imperial Navy.”


End file.
